Hello everyone,

Im new to this forum, and I have ran into a problem and was hoping some of you may be able to chime in and help me out

I bought a 2008 E350 4Matic in 2011, its been flawless and gave no issues. All of its services had been performed at the mercedes dealer, as well as all oil and filter changes. It has around 105,000 km on it now.

The car was perfectly fine when I turned it off at night, but when I started it the next morning there is nothing showing up on the instrument cluster! The speedometer, tachometer, fuel gauge are completely blank and dont move at all! Also the lights beside the comand unit dont light up either which is strange, however the navigation and all functions work perfectly. I have read some horror stories online about the instrument cluster going bad on these cars and Ive called up the dealer and they are asking around $140/per hour for diagnostics, they said the car might need to stay overnight too which is strange.

A point I wanted to mention is that in the Toronto area its been quite cold, and the weather conditions have been quite bad, could this have played a role? Also for the past 2 weeks the power trunk was opening and closing very slowly so could it be possible that the battery is going bad? I took it to a mechanic and he said the cluster isnt giving any response, disconnected the battery, checked all fuses and nothing.

Any help or tips would be appreciated, as I heard that it costs around $2000+ for the instrument cluster if its the main issue

 

Are you sure all fuses were checked? I believe there are a total of 3 locations these cars have fuses. Could be a relay also. Suck it up and take the car to someone with star diag. Or take it to the dealer.

 

Thanks for the input folks! I guess I will take it directly to the mechanic again. But should I watch out for any fuses in particular? And second is the Instrument cluster linked to the buttons beside the Comand unit? Because although the buttons are functional, they arent lighting up which is quite strange.

 

I have the same problem just happened to me. How did you fix your the instrument panel problem?

Please help!!!!!

 

Hmm, just had the gas, temperature and odometer back light led fail.. common? Has anyone attempted to repair these..? With all of them failing at the same time I'm guessing a driver chip failure.
The gauges still have readings just no light shining from behind..
All other indicator and gauge lights work..
2004 E320 Gas

 

219, same procedure for 211 see here https://mbworld.org/forums/cls-coupe...hting-fix.html

 

thanks much Konigstiger, I'll take a look at it and post results..

 

leds behind odometer, fuel and gas gauge (noted by arrows) are not coming on. gauge lighting (w/headlights) are working normally.

Quick update. the ribbon cable is fine, in fact it looks like an updated version. The LEDs that are not working are on the back 3 circuit boards. I'll update soon..

 

So it came to the point of parts swapping and I was able to purchase a matching part number speedometer cluster and found that the lights in the old unit were fine. The issue resides in the main board. Keeping the new speedo is tricky because the mileage doesn't match and it won't sync with the main ecu. (suggestions?) I'm guessing it could be synced at the dealer or maybe a good independent shop. (suggestions?) North Houston area.

Meanwhile I'll start looking for a likely controller chip or mosfet/transistor that might have failed on the old board.
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minor update.. On the lower left is a Darlington Transistor Array IC.. it's failing to operate so I bypassed it and enabled the failed lighting. (I won't leave it that way because the lights, odometer, fuel and temp LEDs, stay on regardless of key position. )

..
2004 E320

 

nice of you to hijack this thread =)