Had a soda accident and spilled soda on me and it hit the shifter assembly. Know its a weak point and some entered the shifter - don't know how much as I shop vac'd it but drove the car about 2 miles before cleaning and vacuum. No shifting problems at the time but when I got home it wouldn't shift out of Neutral to Park. Also cannot manually activate shift +/-. Gear position lights up and communicates with the gauge cluster except the manual mode. Pulled it apart down to the circuit board - nothing burnt or chared. Cleaned with electronics cleaner - dried it several hours - battery disconnected. Notice that the transmission does shift significantly harder into and out of gear than before. Before it shifted relatively smooth in and out of gear. From park to drive its pretty severe and from drive to neutral is a little less. Is there some damage or should the new shifter fix that?


Reconnected - same symptoms. No change.

So. Assuming that I need a new shifter which I ordered - does the system need to be reset by the dealer or will it plug and play?

 

plug and play mate i had the same issue on my clk55 changed the shifter and good since then

 

Thanks.

Went to the dealership on Thursday of last week to get a new battery. Star system was showing a ton of low voltage errors and the battery was nearly 10 years old - Mercedes battery. Still held a charge and started the car but was a little under spec voltage.

On the shifter, the Service Manager suggested I talk to my insurance company which I did and they said it was covered under my comprehensive warranty. Said the car should be cleared of all codes to shift properly. Almost seems like the shift interlock solenoid is very weak or has low voltage or the unit has no idea what gear its really in.

I have a ZERO deductable with car rental. Had the car flatbedded to the dealership on Friday morning. Got my rental car and now am waiting for the diag and a claims rep to go over the damage. Total cost out of pocket so far is 24 dollars for the excess towing fee. Should have nothing at the dealership except maybe some diag fee - maybe and I'm crossing my fingers. The service writer I've known for more than 15 years and he tends to bend the rules with insurance or warranty work.

The night before I had to really work to put the thing back together like it looked like factory spec. I had already ordered the part and opened the thing up to clean it. Explained that I cleaned it out already to the writer and they said no problem it should pull a code anyway. Left some soda residue and found that there was a bit under the front passenger carpet which I pulled and cleaned the carpet to get any stains out. Its still pretty sticky and they said they would detail it. It was a long night to say the least but I want to get it looking fairly untouched and correct before they did the diag so they would complain that I messed things up. Even lined the paint marked bolts on the security bolts on the shifter to match - don't ask me how long it took.

More than likely they'll replace the shifter, and the esm, clear all the codes and clean it up. May also say the conductor plate is messed up and need that changed as well. With the dealership you never know especially when an insurance claim is involved. Probably will save 1200+ on the work because the shifter alone is 649 retail (600 discounted) and the ESM is ???.. Factor the 140 per hour labor and the bill should touch 1200-1400 maybe. If they do the plate it may get very expensive but I doubt it will go that far.

 

Sounds like your dealership is A OK (suggesting your auto policy may cover).

Mechanically, the 722.6 transmission is bullet proof. 99% of the issues are in the electronics, of which there are 3 modules (e.g. transmission control unit, electronic shift module and conductor plate).

The TCU usually dies from the pilot bushing leaking, which then wicking fluid into the TCU. This has been a ubiquitous problem and MB has since come up with a redesigned bushing (e.g. only a $20 part).

Your owner's manual says that the transmission fluid is good for life. Don't believe that. Since then, MB has discovered that most conductor plate failures were caused by contaminated fluid and now recommends that the fluid and filter be changed every 39,000 miles. While every 39K miles seems excessive, it's probably because there is no drain on the CLK's the torque converter (e.g. to do a complete change).

MB also found that the shifter module was easily fried by liquid spills onto the center console. They have since redesigned the module to make it spill resistant. The new modules were installed at the factory, on all CLK's built from 4/1/2001 on.

Lastly, once entering limp mode, due to fault codes, upon repair, they are stored and must be cleared, to leave limp mode.

PS: Under road-side-assistane, MB gladly will flatbed you to a dealer at no cost. However, I still carry this coverage on my auto policy, as I would much prefer being transported elsewhere.