All,

I've been enjoying my CL55 lately, even through all this cold and snowy weather. Who'd have thunk that the "W" mode works so well?

Anyway, as I'm driving to work I notice that the throttle response stops being so crisp and clean and in fact acts like the gas pedal has been disconnected! At red lights I come to a stop and when the light turns green the car will roll forward, but I put my foot on the gas and nothing happens! Eventually the car will start to accelerate. The CEL has come on. Any ideas? I'm thinking something with the drive-by-wire system isn't working or the TPS is off. The transmission shifts OK and I don't think it's the torque converter or anything odd. Anyone have a 2001 CL55 or similar and go through something similar?

Thanks!

Disconnect your battery for 5 minutes, Ill bet your car works after that, if not Ill paypal you 5.00

It's almost certainly the throttle position sender in the accelerator pedal. Mine died (in a 2001 S55) and it's quite common. Symptoms exactly as you've described. They just replace the pedal assembly.

Disconnecting the battery is asking for trouble.

BTW, a favorite trick is for the dealer to replace the MAF first and then "discover" it was the throttle sender. They will say "the MAF was just out-of-spec." If you're paying, don't stand for it.

I'm taking it to a friendly independent shop that I trust. We have ONE MB dealer in my city and although they're pretty nice the shop rates are crazy expensive.

What kind of damage am I looking at in parts?

No more so than having a dead battery.
Do you have something specific to site?

It the "accelerator pedal" and I have an extra brand new one for sale. I got an extra brand new one because my car break down when i was out of town and has the part replaced at a non-mercedes shop and Mercedes wouldn't refund me for the part. So when I got home, I put the bad part back and drop the car at the dealer and Mercedes replaced it with a new one and that's how I got an extra one.

Sure. Depending on model, there are quite a few things that may have to be reset. Radio code, steering angle sensor and BAS/ESP state are some of the possibilities. You often have codes thrown after disconnecting the battery and the only way to turn off the CEL is to visit the dealer. The dealer uses a temp. battery to keep the various computers happy when they have to disconnect the main battery, but many times they have to reset a bunch of things too. Usually a dead battery can provide enough voltage to keep the import CAN consumers going even though it won't turn the starter. These late-model cars are designed to keep the dealer's service bay full.

Mine was covered by extended warranty so I don't know for sure, but I don't think it's very bad. It's just a potentiometer.

This is news to me, in my experience with AMG's and their electrical gremlins most of which, and youd be very surprised can be remedied by resetting the battery. I still got 5 on it.

Interesting about the ESP and steering angle sensor.
You can always ask the guys at the auto parts store to do the reset - usually they're good for it.

Same thing happened to mine twice. Its something electrical with the throttle by wire. Just take it to a local dealer and they should be able to fix it in a jiffy.