fazooley

This is really the end of the end with this car. I've had so many problems with this vehicle and tonight it put me in serious jeapordy of killing myself or others on the road. I was driving down a busy road just about 200 feet before getting onto the highway to head home when all of a sudden loud rapid beeping and warning "Stop Car" "Brake Failure" in the instrument cluster. Almost crashed with a police car in front of me and was able to skid onto a side block. Once I got there I still didnt really understand what exactly was happening and again pressing the brakes absolutely nothing, no stopping power at all. I was lucky enough to be able to safely let the car roll to a stop; however if I would have driven a minute or so more I would have been at speeds of 70+ with failing brakes. MB roadside came and picked up the car and towed it over to the dealership and frankly I dont even want to get back into this thing. I don't want to have to worry everytime I get into this car about the brakes failing, which is unfortunately running through my head over and over. I've had the SBC brake recall performed not too long ago and thought there was some sort of backup system that would allow me to stop even if the electric one malfunctioned; however that did not activate at all. Has anyone had this partcular issue happen to them and any ideas of how I should approach my dealer. I really do not want to drive this car ever again


fazooley

LIONHEAD

Daum...sorry to hear that. Luckly nothing serious came out of it. I wouldn't want to drive it after reading your incident today either and it's no laughing matter. Can you possibly apply the Lemon Law in your State with all the problems you've had?

SAguirre

Wow!

I am very glad that no one was hurt and that you did not bend any metal or plastic! I sure hope this never happens to me, but I have often wondered if people who experience brake failure would actually think to use the emergency brake (parking brake). I guess that when you are dodging police cars and handling an emergency you tend to forget about these little things.

You have good reason to distrust the car, I think. However, for everyone else’s sake, could you PLEASE TELL US WHAT THE MALFUNCTION WAS WHEN THEY FIND IT??????????? I just want to know so that I know, that's all.

Count your blessings!

Steve A.

GearHead

Hey Bro

I really feel for you. I am so sorry to hear about your brake problems. Really glad that you were alright.

In my post nearly a year ago, I had indicated that I brought my E to stealership in Southern Cal to work on my brakes. On New Years Eve 2003, I collected my car and proceeded to drive home and the Dash flashed with RED ALERTS .... Yes my SBC failed. Outcome was the bleeding on my SBC was not done correctly that resulted in this. Was your brakes bled just recently?

I know the feeling about fear getting behind the wheel. My E sat in the garage for almost 3 months before I ventured to drive it again. To this day, my wife has refused to drive it.

I hope you are able to find out the cause of your SBC failure.

BklynBenz

i was in the car with fazooley when this happened and yes he stepped on the emergency brake and that did nothing as well.

GearHead

I recalled having to downshift on my gears to use the engine speed to slow down the car.

I know it must have been scary, I had my wife, kid and my mother-in-law screaming in my car during the SBC failure.

fazooley

Im pretty sure I stepped on them, Im almost positive but I cant really remember. I was pretty nervous throughout the whole ordeal. To answer to post above about bleeding the brake lines, the dealership just did the SBC brake recall; does that require bleeding of the brakes?

fazooley

GearHead

Frankie

I recalled reading somewhere that bleeding of brakes were required for some of the W211's during the work on SBC recall. This extra step is VIN dependent. When was your recall done?

fazooley

It was done around 3 weeks ago.

fazooley

GearHead

Wow, 3 weeks ago, I don't know whether this is bleeding related. Will have to defer to someone else who happens to be a brake expert.

As for my post on VIN dependent for the brakes bleeding during SBC recall work, if the chassis number end number is less than A 279 911, bleeding is needed. If the chassis end number is greater then A 279 912, bleeding is not required.

Please let us know what your dealership finds.

SAguirre

Well, I would have needed a change of underwear then. . .

The parking/emergency brake is a very small drum brake in the rear that has nothing to do in any way with the SBC or the four disc brakes. It is 100% mechanical (cable driven) and should not fail. HOWEVER!!! I have tried stopping with it on my other MBs and it does not stop much, but does stop EVENTUALY.

I don't know how fast you were driving, but if you were driving over 45MPH I am sure it would have felt like nothing happened. But is probably helped you come to a stop much fast than if you had not pressed it.

Anyway, I am glad no one was hurt! By the way, I drove my flatlander parents up to Vail last week and there was an 18 wheeler that had his brakes fail behind me!!!! I always look in my rear-view mirror when driving down the passes and the truck still passed me when I was driving downhill at about 70 MPH in 3rd gear!!!!! I saw him coming and switched lanes very quickly, by the time it got down to the first East Vail Exit its brakes (at least 3 axels) were blazing flames! I had to call 911. My parents could not believe it, and I am very happy that I was not rear-ended by a full 18-wheeler driving over 70 MPH. In the 1980s two old ladies in the slow lane were rear-ended by a runaway truck, since then, I have always paid close attention to the rear-view mirror. That is my scary brake story for a long time (I hope).

Steve A

BudC

First of all, I don't understand why the back-up system didn't work. There should have been front wheel braking even if it took much higher pedal pressure.

Secondly, I hope that this didn't result from some kind of goof up when the system was reprogrammed because of the recall.

Although it was three weeks after dealer service, it could still be a screw-up by the service department. It seems that each of these failures (although rare) might be tied to a screw-up by a technician, especially a failure to bleed the system correctly. It takes a long time to bleed the system and these guys are always trying to cut corners.

MadManAboutTown

Of course, the dealership will attempt to repair the brakes and have you accept possession of the car again.

My advice - hire a lemon law attorney for your state and have him contact MBUSA (who will likely direct your dealership to be their representative) and either demand a new ('05r) replacement or a complete refund of your purchase price.

If nothing else, this action will make them seriously consider their options before a potential lawsuit is filed.

konigstiger

Check your PM.

fazooley

Well the car arrived at the dealership this morning and I havent heard back from them yet. I told them what happened and they seemed to take me very serious; especially after they reminded me of the recall and I REMINDED them it was performed by them no more than 3 weeks ago. Upon hearing that silence for a minute or so and then a we'll get to the bottom of it from the manager. I spoke with a sales manager over at ray catena about my problem also and they basically told me before we could even try to rectify the situation they would have to at least see exactly what happened; which I think is fair enough. It's not uncommon for me to infants or small children (my nieces and nephews) in the rear of my car and while I may have been lucky enough not to crash or kill anybody, if it was my girlfriend she would have definetly panicked and crashed. Bottom line is, I do not feel safe whatsoever driving this car and neither does my family. Unless Ray Catena or Mbusa is willing to give me a written guarantee that this will never happen again, or the liability of my familys, mine or anyone elses death involved due to brake failure will fall on there shoulders I don't want to accept this car back.

fazooley

moa4r

WOW, unbelievable, two people with BRAKE FAILURES and the backup system did not work....scary sh*t glad you both made it w/o any injuries.... please let us know the outcome of the dealership investigation

fazooley

They also want to stick me with some local enterprise rent a car which they say I can spend 30.00 a day. They told me at enterprise a neon is more than that, I mean cmon. So now not only am I stuck here all day with no vehicle, and I know this isnt going to be resolved in a day or two; I need to tool around in some neon for god knows how long?

Fazooley

BudC

The dealer may discover exactly what happened but I'm not sure anyone else will. This could be a huge liability problem for the dealer if they screwed up.

Are we also sure that the back-up system didn't work or that the foot pressure required to make it work was more than one would expect?

Did the vehicle's VIN number fall within the range requiring a fluid change? If so, then I'll bet that is the problem.

Fastbuck

To have experienced this you would have had to have multiple catastrophic failures:

1. SBC electronic aspects completely fail and car switches to emergency hydrolic mode.

2. hydrolic mode links the diagonally opposite wheels on completely separate circuits. Both circuits would have had to fail to result in the complete loss of brakes.


Did you run over some large piece of debris on the road prior to this happening? I've seen a small branch of a tree sever both brake circuits (non MB) previously when a driver ran over it.


Glad you're safe though!

fazooley

There was 2 error messages, one was for SBC system fail and the other was a serious brake failure error or somthing of the such. The road was rather clear, no debris or snow anywhere. It was very weird as I was going down a hill and the brakes had worked a second before. There was no hesitation and everything felt completely normal, then a second later no brakes.

fazooley

GearHead

I just don't understand some MB dealerships

Stuff that is happening to you now is so surreal. It is in someways a flash back to my experience 12/31/03

FletcherJones had me wait in the lounge for 3 hours while their tech re-bled the brakes. During all these time, no one from their management even came out to address their incompetence. Few days later, I wrote an email to MBUSA to bring to their attention to this. COMPLETE SILENCE. I called the Service Manager of FJ and the only thing he indicated that their technicians have been trained to the highest level of professionalism and he will reinforce to their technician about the importance of quality of work. Utter BS. What is wrong with MBUSA and some of the MB dealerships. COMPLETE ARROGANCE.

I hope your dealership handles your case better. GL

jim256

Fastbuck:
I believe that the emergency hydraulic system (actually just end of travel pedal pressure) only operates the front brakes. Much higher effort is required. I'm pretty sure that it does not have a redundant fluid reservoir since it's already the backup. All of that was covered very thoroughly in the e-learning pages for MB techs before they secured access to the site. My recollection is from memory, so I could be wrong.

Otto

Is this sbc campaingn 2004050014 for US w211 and w230?
(US has a "basic" version of SBC -- no SBC hold and SBC stop)

I am not sure the problem is from your euro comand or the other modifications, e.g. dvd in motion.

when you press brake pedal, the comand reads the program from memory to instruct sbc system. when this addressed memory is overridden by other unexpected codes then sbc fails; however, you should be able to stop your car by pressing brake pedal harder -- the hydraulic one always works because it is designed to stop your car when electricity is out. (don’t panic, press pedal harder when sbc fails.)

for your safety, don’t modify comand. (watching tv while driving is dangerous, it may hurt you and other people.)

moa4r

^ this is a load of

BklynBenz