galinskie

Has anyone else had this happen? Happened to my wife yesterday. The Service Advisor didn't even blink when we described the problem, seems like it was not uncommon.

Bascially as she was turning into our driveway the steering wheel "Locked up" like the car was off. At the same time all the lights on the dashboard started flashing in sync.

She wound up going up into the grass before stopping.

Just another in an incredibly long list of problems, but by far potentially the most dangerous. Definitly the last straw with the car.

JDM_SXE-10

That's good that she wasn't at speeds and in traffic. I haven't heard anybody else with this problem yet. Did the car shut off when this happened? Was the key in the ignition or do you have Keyless Go?

sunkist

Wow I'm glad your wife is ok and that it happened in your driveway instead of the road.

I havent experienced anything like this.

Diesel Benz

You don't describe accurately what actually happened. Did the steering wheel lock engage or "just" the power steering pump fail, perhaps a pump failure of poly-V belt getting off?

I've never heard of the steering wheel lock cutting in, but who knows if it could happen.

galinskie

It was not the power steering. It was not hard to turn. It did not turn, totally locked, like when you try and turn a steering wheel when a car is off with no key in the ignition.

galinskie

The key was in, there is no keyless go. After stopping, she put the car in park, turned if off and back on again, and it worked fine.

galinskie

[QUOTE/]

I havent experienced anything like this.[/QUOTE]

I would not have believed it myself if not for the fact the same car when I was driving put itself in neutral when i was driving 40mph one day. The car was actually still in "D" but the transmission was totally out of gear. I had to coast to the shoulder, put the car in "P" and back to "D" to get going again.

football#89

What was remedy as this happened to me as well

Geeta Mareedu

this happened to me just now on my E350; what was the problem, what was your fix?

Javier Baltazar

Happened to me today on an off ramp.... the steering locked on me and I almost lost it. Check my hood and a belt had slipped off

kajtek1

Not too many drivers in case of lost PS will be able to still steer the car with much more force required. Meaning I think it was more likely loss of PS and not actuall steering lock.
Flashing lights confirms that the issue was with belt. Any idler puller with locking bearing? Alternator spreading metal shavings around?

Russell Ormerod

I have never heard of a steering lock activating, its virtually impossible to happen due to the failsafe circuits in the design. The fact that the dash lamps flashed means it most likely cut out. Because afterwards it could be restarted. With engine off and at very low speed the steering will be very heavy

rschlunz

Can you share more about what you determined was the cause please??? I just bought two 2007s for my 18 year old twins to drive to school/work and this just happened last night to one of them. He was using the keyless go push button start when it happened though, and he had to use e-brake to get the car to stop. Thank God he was only going 20mph on a flat road when it happened to him. No codes set, no other info to help us diagnose what the root cause was or how to fix it. PLEASE share what you discovered to be the root cause for your W211. For now, we are *hoping* it was related to the kelyess go system and won't use it again...

cmriv

I've never heard of a 211 or 204 locking with vehicle on and moving, doesn't mean it can't happen. I'm curious as to what the culprit is. Something doesn't add up though. IF the vehicle is running or moving, how does central gateway tell EIS to cutoff? In turn locking the steering lock? Then re-cycling the key makes it all okay? Interesting.

cmriv

unless you have an abundance of keys and keychains. It's very well possible if that is the case, the weight of the keys or whatever could be causing the signal for eis to drop out momentarily. Now that i think about it, I have heard cases of things related to excessive key chain weight.


but the 2007 instance sounds like a keyless go problem. Maybe batteries in remotes are weak.

Palmer Kim

Has anyone been replied to for this issue? I just purchased a used ‘03 E500 from a private party for my son. I have been sharing this car with my son for the past couple months. I was making a low speed right turn out of my office a couple days ago and the steering wheel locked up on me, as well. I noticed the instrument panel lit up and I heard a crack. I have had a car stall on me before (my truck had a vacuum leak) but once the power steering turns off, I was still able to turn the wheel. In this instance, the steering wheel locked up and I was unable to turn it. I ended up hitting a parked car. I called MBZ and filed a report. The nice person on the line said that there weren’t any recalls regarding this and that this was not a known issue to them. The only open recall being for the SBC actuation or something like that. I want to know if this problem has been resolved before I go through the process of repairing my vehicle and handing it off to my 17 year old son. The other things that sucks about this is that my insurance company had to get involved to repair the parked car, I now have a point against me, and I need to fix my son’s car.
If anyone can either post here or email me with their experiences on how they resolved this issue, I would truly appreciate it.

tjts1

Contact the NHTSA and file a report there. That's the only way a recall will get started.

ot1

so he turned off the car by pressing the shifter button, this is allowed only when in PARK. Pushing the shifter button in any other gear and neutral should cause a RED dash warning message. If you don't get the warning message when in drive then a signal wire is broken.

ot1

details, like was the car towed after the accident? Dash lights up, such as like when turning on the ignition, prior to starting the car? The crack? Snapped serpentine belt? Engine died while operating vehicle?

cetialpha5

Yes, file a report.

https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/VehicleComplaint/

Also with regards to insurance, there's usually a way to dispute the charge. Normally you have some kind of hearing. File the report and bring it as evidence and tell them it was a mechanical failure and here's the report you filed. You might get the point waived.

Palmer Kim

After the accident, I put the shifter in Park and turned off the ignition.
Went out to survey the damage. Since my butt was sticking out onto the street, I started the engine, put it in reverse and was able to steer the car, without issue, to park it behind the parked car.

Prior to the accident, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. After the accident, when I restarted the car, everything seemed fine in the dash. After taking a few minutes to collect myself, I was able to drive the car about a mile without incident, before I pulled over due to leaking coolant/ smoke.

The serpentine belt is intact. The engine did not die while I was driving.

I have a mechanic coming to take a look at it today. I will update here and file with the NHTSA when he tells me what he sees.

Palmer Kim

My mechanic looked at the car. He thinks it was the mechanical steering lock that engaged while I was driving. He said there could be a few reasons for it to trip while I was driving. Could be a weak motor (it needs to push a spring or something?), and some other things I don’t remember. The most important thing is he said we can disable it so that it won’t happen again. I guess the newer steering columns don’t have the steering lock/ pin installed anymore since most keys have chips in them for security reasons.

He also said I should I definitely report it to the NHTSA because I was injured in the crash (minor) it’s classified as “1A” or something like that.

Russell Ormerod

Unless someone has tampered with the cars wiring, there is no way the steering lock can automatically engage until the key is physically removed.
Mercedes have double engineered safety into the locks, so over and above needing a unique signal to engage the lock, once the key turns to position 1 the power is also removed from the lock all together so there is no way it can self engage,

ot1

in addition without Keyless Go... so with key in ignition and vehicle running, must be in park, key removed and driver door opened before steering wheel locks. You can turn off engine if not in park but you can’t remove the key. With Keyless Go, you can’t turn off the engine unless the vehicle is in park. Once the vehicle is off, the steering wheel locks after opening the driver door.