Hi guys!
I hope to get some information about the CL 600 that I've just purchased.
As I know, the door hinge is a weak point in the CL 600 and that applies to mine aswell.
The speakers on the passenger side only work when I wiggle the wiring around, so I want to repair the wiring harness. Also, the keyless go button on both doors have stopped working. The rest of the systems inside the doors seem to be working fine. EDIT: I just noticed that the car is only unlocking when I pull the doorhandle, so the capacitive system seems to be broken too.
The previous owner seems to have tried to fix the issue, as I can see some electrical tape being present around one of the wires.

I already came across a few threads, but they did not answer all of my questions. (eg. Did my CL600 Have a Stroke? Right side DEAD)

I've got a few questions:

• Is it normal for the speakers to stop working (both doors do this) when the doors are opened for about 20%? Everytime I open my drivers door, the speakers stop working and start working again when it's almost shut.
• Why does my passenger door turn signal give a very very very short blink, when the car is sitting locked? Has that something to do with the alarm, or the keyless go key hopping in and out of range?
• Before working on the wiring, I should disconnect the battery, but a friend of mine told me that there might be a secondary battery inside the car to provide power to the class 3 alarm system and the tracker that's built in. Where is that located?
• Should I replace the wiring harness in the door or should I fix the existing one?
  • If fixing the existing wiring harness is recommended, do you recommend fixing and extending every wire or only the wires that are broken? I was planning to do all of them, one at a time, using watertight soldering heatshrinks (see image below)
  • If installing a new wiring harness is recommended, do you recommend extending the wiring to prevent the issue from happening again, or do you have other suggestions on how to prevent this issue from happening again?
• How far can the door handle be disassembled? I want to try and repair the physical button to have the keyless go button back working on both doors.
• How does one replace the rubber accordeon?

Watertight soldering heatshrinks

 

Good afternoon Tim,
First, Congrats on your purchase and hope you enjoy the vehicle and have fun with it ( safely of course ).

I purchased my 06 CL500 a few months ago and started dabbling around with almost the same issues you are having and I could tell you a what I've done so far in attempt to fix them,

- As for the Keyless and the speakers I had the same issues and I found a lot of cut wires in both doors' accordion thing, so I cut all of them clean at different lengths and added around a foot or a 25-30 cm extra to each and soldered them with a regular soldering iron and solder and added heat shrink on them, the reason I cut them at different lengths is to not create a huge bulge in one place when I solder everything together and I did that to all the wires in both doors except the loom that contains the airbag wires because I didn't know at the time that it was safe or not. That gave back life to both doors speakers and the Keyless Entry/Go as well.

- The speakers shouldn't do what they are doing with you right now, I suspect a broken ground wire (not likely because in the accordion there is a separate loom for the speakers and it has 2 pairs of wires including 1 +ve and 1 -ve for each speaker set in the door) or the other situation that I had was a really weird problem and I discovered it by mistake, the DCM (door control module) main power plug was making kind of a loose connection around the pins in the DCM itself, I mean the female parts of the black 10-pin connector had loose jaws and it wasn't connecting right so squeezed them closer and everything went back to normal in the passenger door.

- I have no idea about the turn signal so I am sorry I can't help in that part.

- As for the secondary battery, I don't think there is one, I believe it's more of a capacitor that preserves SOME charge for a small period of time (I believe around 2 hours from what I have encountered) and btw, the alarm system is disabled when you disconnect the battery from the trunk.

- For the door handles, don't know how to explain it but kindly bare with me, first I don't believe that both buttons are not working at the same time due to physical damage in both of them, that is a rare occasion, I recommend fixing the wires in the accordion first then check them. YOU DON'T HAVE TO READ THE REST OF THIS POINT UNLESS YOU HAVE TO TAKE OFF THE KNOB. The door knob has 2 external parts and at least 1 main part from the inside, to disassemble a door knob, you would first start by opening the door (too obvious I know) and remove the rubber that goes around the far outer edge around that door NOT ALL OF IT, only a small part which is behind the part that has the IR sensor in the knob and you shall find a Torx screw (T30 or T25 can't remember) when you loosen this one some people say take care you don't drop it but mine had like a locking washer from the inside of the door that prevented it from coming out all the way but it was loosing all the way from the first part of the knob (the part that has the IR sensor, you can then pull that part out but beware of the cable it's annoying but you don't need to unplug it, just drop that knob part downwards, the second part of the knob is the one that you actually pull to open the door, this one comes of by sliding/pulling it towards the rear of the car then pull it out, but pay attention because it is connected to a physical link that pulls the lock open and opens the door so pay a closer look to how it looks before you take the knob out because there is only one way to put it back in and it's fairly easy don't worry and the shape of the knob from inside would help you know what I mean. Once this part is out, there are two small Torx screws (T15 I guess) you can take them off and open the top part of the knob and you will be able to see the circuit board inside the knob. To do all that, you DON"T have to take the door panel off or anything.

- I Have no idea about changing the accordion so I can't help here sorry.


I might be able to grab a picture of the screw for the door knob for you later tonight.

Best of luck and I hope you finish all these issues as fast and headache free as possible
-Adel

 

Hi Adel,

I will! I'll try to take proper care of my CL 600!

First of all, thanks for your answer. This was the kind of answer I was hoping to get

Is there some kind of an overview of all the wiring inside the accordeon, including their function?

I tried bleeping out (using continuity mode on your digital multimeter) the keyless go button on the drivers side door, but nothing bleeped (might not have made proper contact with the buttons pins). The button on the passengers side door is ripped off all together, and a corroded PCB was presented to me, so I think I'll have to find a replacement part.
I'm glad I don't have to remove the door panels, WIS said something different I think.

How do you protect the remaining wires from breaking in the future? Add some electrical tape around them?

 

You are very welcome,

I am sure there are a lot of titans on this forum that could help you better with the wiring thing, but all I know is there are three group of wires (three looms wrapped separately inside the accordion) one that has just 4 wires for the speakers, the other has the Keyless Go/Entry System (it has 13 wires in the driver's door not sure how many in the other door) and it also includes the two main power cables the brown and red that go into the 10-pin black plug that powers the entire door through the DCM (Door Control Module) and I didn't open the third group but I believe it should have at least 2 wires for the air bag and also the air hose for the soft close and am not sure if there is something else in that one (if there is something else left out yet)

As for protecting the other wires from breaking off I am not sure to be honest but what I understand is the reason they are getting cut like that is that Mercedes made the wires with the exact length when the doors open with barely some to none tolerance and that leads them to get cut due to fatigue and straining from repeatedly opening and closing the door(s) which is what you should do to ride the car

- Adel

 

One of the sleeves was already opened up, and when I looked into it I saw a brown cable and a red cable that where completely disconnected from their other end, driver's side.
I'll try to repair the wiring by the end of the week and I'll make sure to keep you updated.

 

The main power cables (Red and Brown) are thicker than the others btw, also if you found cables with the same color don't worry about interchanging them, they should be doing the same thing or else they would have different color.
Hope it goes well with you and thanks for keeping me updated.

 

Last friday I opened up the sleeve and I found that 4 spekaer wires where cut on the left side and 3 speaker wires on the right side. I extended 2 smaller wires on the left door since I saw some copper peeking through. All the speakers are working!
The right airbag's main wire was cut and the two inner cables where visible, no copper though. Can/should I replace them or should I install a new airbag?

 

I have no experience in dealing with airbag wires, but I remember on another post somewhere on these forums that someone was able to extend these cables as well but with the battery disconnected, but I would double check that information first if I were you.

What about the other wires in the loom/sleeve/accordion ? did you check them ? did you find any damage ?

 

I did disconnect the battery when I did the extensions last friday, so that shouldn't be a problem.
I did check all the wires and apart from 2 wires in the left door and the airbag wire in the right door, the wires looked fine.

 

Did you put back everything together ? did you to* test the things that weren't working before ?