My wife purchased a new car so my pride and joy CLK550 that is usually only driven about 10K a year from spring to fall has now become the take the kids to school, do the shopping, snow car (not a good idea). It's -25 Celsius (about -12 Fahrenheit) and -40 in either scale with the wind chill today. So armed with knock off RIMS and Winter tires (that actually look better than my AMG RIMS to be honest) I ventured out of my toasty garage into the bitter cold where I left the car in the drive for 10 minutes to warm up.

I hit the road with kids in tow, messy boots on my floor that are covered with rubber mats in a poor attempt to protect the carpet from inevitable destruction. With Backpacks digging into my seats and scuff marks on the doors i cringed as I hit the ice at the end of the drive. Suddenly the dash lit up like a Christmas Tree. Hand Brake sensor went off. The Break was off, I never put it on at home, but a quick tug of the handle and it came good. Run flat indicator unavailable. ABS / EPS unavailable see owners manual and suddenly the wheels began to spin. It was somewhat reminiscent of the early days when I purchased this baby and discovered dyno mode for burnouts, drifts and donuts. This was back when I was a little more adventurous, but now with young kids in the car it was not an experience I wanted to relive.

The car didn't go into limp mode although I was in local suburb / school districts all the way so I am not sure if I would have noticed. I drove back via the car wash as I looked in horror at snow, slush and ice that had accumulated in just a few short minutes. The dreaded salt that I am sure was already starting to attack my undercarriage was causing me heart palpitations. On the drive home the ABS / EPS alarms seem to just turn off and when I arrived home and put her back to bed in the garage I turned her off and checked out service mode. All seemed normal. I restarted the engine and it was if it never happened.

Has anyone else experienced multiple sensor failures of this nature in bitter cold? Is this normal? losing ABS on ice I can't imagine is fun if you were traveling or cornering at speed. Is this some type of fail (un)safe mechanism or could I have a mechanical problem that needs to be investigated?

 

If it doesn't happen again, don't worry about it. These cars have weird electrical gremlins now and then. I drive my car 365 days a year in Denver, including snow and occasional subzero cold. Sometimes my steering wheel does not lower to its correct position, and the seat belt presenter goes in and out two or three times, but those are the only ill effects of cold so far.

 

My guess is this was caused by low voltage from a marginally weak battery.