So today my wife and I noticed a burning smell almost like burning rubber (not tires though) couldnt find/see anything wrong with the car so we thought it might just be from the parking lot/area we noticed it in. Later this afternoon the message display showed battery warning alternator, so i thought i might be able to make it the few miles home rather than the side of the road. well very shortly afterwards the coolant light came on along with the esp, abs, and srs lights. powersteering went out too and the message display went so dark i couldnt read it anymore.


could this just be the alternator? or hopefully nothing more serious?



a sad day for the benz:

yeah i had the same thing happened to me. your alternator is dead. You were slowly getting those messages are your stock battery runs out of power and didn't have enough power to run those devices.

I would double check the belt and make sure it didnt come loose. It might have come loose and the burning rubber smell can be from the belt.

thankfully since you have a c55 you can just replace the regulator chip.

I had similar issues when my CPS or vol regulator went south.. That's what I would check first.
Alternator shouldn't go out like that on our cars...
To replace CPS it would cost around $100-300.. Vol Reg was about same price i think.,.

Good luck!

To bad man..
usually you wont get the coolant light on with a bad alt... you will just get the red batt light. Did you here any noise.. also you smelt burning rubber which also you shouldnt smell from a faulty alt.. Sounds like you threw the drive belt..

but could be anything keep us updated

I agree on the belt theory - did anything look abnormal when you popped the hood?

Belt turns accessories such as your alternator, water pump, A/C, power steering pump. If it was just the battery light you would start by looking at alternator, but with coolant light and no power steering the process of elimination leads to;

Checking belt and pulleys.

Running with no alternator just kills the battery. Running with no water pump can be a very very bad thing.

Quixk reply from the phone... Are the coolant fans electric? I was thinking that might be why the coolant light came on... It's underwarranty so I'll find out more tomorrow

which dealer did you tow to?

towed to my apt, towing to HGMotorsports tomorrow morning

keep us posted, hope its something simple..

The fan is electric, however the pump that pumps the coolant through the engine and radiator is driven by the same belt that drives the alternator and all the other accessories.

I had misread your post earlier. Thanks for clearing that up

those are some seckys tail lights
I'm thinking the rubber is the belt slipping on the pulley-then prob falling off-
I dont think the whole alt will need replacing-I've never heard of them going out that fast with no warning (of some kind)-
keep us updated-and find out about the 07 C55!

Well hmmm did you lose power steering? Guess that would be a good indicator if all of the accessories went kaput.

yeah, I turned the car on today (there was no way i could have pushed it by myself to a position the tow truck could have gotten to) it turned on fine, but the alternator light came on immedatly. i looked at the belt, and it looked fine and didnt feel loose... HGM will be looking at it tomorrow I'll get a prognosis soon i hope.

so what was it?