CLK 430 (2001) headlamps stay on!

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Mar 21, 2017 | 08:44 PM
  #1  
HALP!

I've not had any success finding answers to this conundrum. I was preparing the old girl for the winter. I went for a short drive, filled her with premium gasoline and returned immediately home and put her in the garage for storage. I turned the car off, popped the trunk, affixed the battery tender (leaving the trunk slightly ajar for the cord), put up the windows and locked up the doors. (The roof is down because of another issue addressed in a different thread).

In any event, what happened next makes NO sense! I put the car cover on her and all was fine. The next day, I had forgotten something in the glove compartment so I had to take the cover off partly, unlock the car, access the glove compartment, retrieve the item, then closed the compartment (just recounting each and every step of the way) exited the vehicle and used the FOB to lock the doors. I don't recal putting the key in the ignition or starting the vehicle but when I got out and locked the doors with the FOB, the headlamps were on.

No big deal, probably on delay. 30 seconds go by, a minute, 5 minutes, 10! What the...? So, I strip the cover back again, pop open the garage door, unlock via the FOB, start up the car, no idiot lights present, let her run for a short spell, turn the lights on/off/auto/parking then off again. Turn off the car, close the door, lock it and wait. Same deal.

Hmm, maybe something with the battery tender? Disconnect it, close the trunk, turn the car on, turn it off, yada yada yada, again same diff.

In the end I couldn't find ANYTHING even remotely referring to this issue so I located the fuse panel for the lights (inside the driver's side, left of the dash) and popped the fuse, voila - lights out.

Great, at least the battery won't drain and my cover melt through the winter. Reconnect battery tender, leave trunk ajar and replace the cover and to hell with it.

Well spring is coming upon us quickly and I may as well start searching for answers now because this is baffling. Hopefully there's a easy fix because between this and the rollbars, I'm ready to fire this thing off a cliff. It may be an '01 but it only has 107k on it! Mercedes craftsmanship? I submit a consonant be substituted at the end there.

Again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!
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