Bigglejones

I have searched and found a couple others with this same problem, but no one has yet to be able to give an answer:

I parked my CLK320 outside, and came back about 20 minutes later and the car was making an electronic "cricket-like" sound coming from under the hood. Also when I opened the trunk to check out the battery, the light was pulsating very rapidly. When I got inside the car the tow-away light was also blinking. All of this ended up draining my battery so I had to get a jump.

As I said before I have seen a couple other threads with this same problem, but no one could find an answer including the dealer. Any help??

Other threads:

https://mbworld.org/forums/clk-class-w208/96818-clk-430-alarm-chirp-problem.html
https://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w203/9468-help-please-read-ticking-sound.html

mleskovar

In twenty minutes your battery should not have been drained....maybe the battery is going out? Also, did you try hitting the panic button?

Moviela

It sounds to me like one of the consumers of power has a short. When the device is turned on, it consumes too much power. This browns out the controller, so it resets, removing the shorted consumer. The voltage goes back up, and the controller turns on the consumer with the short. Most consumers of electricty have a fuse to protect the wiring, and prevent a fire. In some cases there might not be enough current available to melt the fuse. This could happen if there was a corroded connection between the battery terminal and the consumer, or from the consumer to chassis ground.

I would start looking around the rear SAM. Measuring voltages on fuses is where I would begin, then checking current of any powered consumer, while the key is out.
Keep in mind that if you disconnect certain items, you will need to reset them when power is back on.