My old starter battery got worn out when I left my clk430 unused for just 5 days. After replacing the battery, I found parasitic drain from the COMAND component and the e-call/tele-aid system. The COMAND drain seems to have been easily fixed by removing the navigation CD as others have reported. The tele-aid drain is "fixed" by not having the associated fuse in. However, this results in an SRS error on the dash. I hope this doesn't mean my airbags are disabled by this fuse. Does anyone know? Is there a more complete DIY fix I can do to disable the now useless tele-aid component without causing an error? I've read that a shop can set the tele-aid component to not present, but this seems rather expensive for an already non-functional component (since the analog calling network is long since disabled). Is leaving the SRS error and ignoring it the next best thing? I'm hoping there is something like a wire I can snip to permanently disable tele-aid without flagging an error or requiring an expensive shop visit.

With the e-call fuse in place (fuse #3 in trunk), the car drains about .25A silently while turned off. This without any indications that it's trying to make an SOS call or anything like that.

 

@MJ50 Please move it to the W208 Forum

 

Why? Car in question is a 2003 CLK 430 cabriolet, which is a W209, no?

 

What does VIN number start with WDB208 or WDB209

CLK430 should be WDB208!

 

Vin for my 2003 clk430 starts with WDBLK

Back to the question... Seems to me removing the fuse is perhaps the best solution if it does not affect the airbag functionality. Can anyone confirm? I don't want to waste time/money dealing with STAR just to get the obsolete hardware to not cause parasitic drain.

 

Thats a W208, There is no W209 430 Model.

 

Ok. Guess the forum descriptions need to be updated to reflect that (where the w208 forum description apparently incorrectly indicates MY 1998-2002).
Car in question is MY 2003. This forum description indicates MY 2003+, thus the post is here.

Anyways, I can see that battery drain from teleaid was identified as a problem for this car as far back in 2002. Yet nobody seems to have a workaround not involving STAR and physical removal. My battery did once fully drain under warranty (after 1 month without use) and yet mercedes didn't do anything about teleaid, just replaced the battery.

W208 documentation of trunk fuse 3 indicates just tele-aid, not air bags so it seems fuse removal is ABS-safe, and probably best.

 

The only reason why I told you that is because you should check in the W208 Forum becauses it may be a well known or common issue

 

Plenty of posts about people noticing teleaid wasting power not turning off, across many different models and years, and struggling with STAR but I've found no answers to my new questions. I'd think there'd be an FAQ on this by now but haven't seen one.
Off topic posts about how the forum listed for 2003 MY cabriolets is not actually right for some models just hijacks the thread I think. Problem isn't unique to the clk430 after all.

Oh well seems to be no answers here.