efzauner

Finally have the nightmare scenario 2011 R350 70Kmiles (115k Km)
Washed the car yesterday, put it under car shelter. Today opened rear door and all hell broke loose
Red flashing dash "take car to dealer without shifting gears" beep alarm too
SRS malfunction
ABS malfunction
Tire inflation warning malfunction

Cant start car.
lights work
heat/blower seemed to be on (tried to turn it off)
cant lock doors.
Cant turn stuff off
probably other problems.

What the hell?
No water in air intake underhood
Possible water from snow melt under drivers seat?

efzauner

Update
put battery charger and things are back to life. Have door lock , rear hatch and other control
Voltage without charger is like 6 volts!
Battery is charging at maximum setting of 15 amps. Hope it is not a short somewhere.
but transmission no shift and other faults still there. Will wait till charged if it does charge up.
I had similar problem a few years ago with honda..Shorted alternator. no amount of charging or boosting helped as any attempt to charge just went thru short.

So car started and battery holds at 12 volts, so no direct short. but still transmission fault. Auxilliary battery?

efzauner

if it was just a very dead battery, and I am now charging it, will the auxiliary batter recharge also? Will the "take car to dealer, do not shift" warning go away?
i read in another post that disconnecting the main battery for a few minutes will reset things.

efzauner

Overnight charging has solved the problem. had a U0155 code, seems it is unable to communicate with instrument cluster but not sure. my alldatadiy does not have that code .
my generic code reader may not be specific. However, engine light on too.. so a obdII reset did the trick
Now just to see what caused the battery do die in one day. will bring it in the garage and test the battery.. Alternator seems to work fine.

taranch

Did you figure out what was wrong?

efzauner

No, I did not find out what caused the power drain to kill the battery in a day. Will see if it persists.
I did test the battery and it showed just on the edge of weak to good.

So same problem this morning Battery drained overnight in 12 hours. Purchased a new battery. Great deals on Group 48 AGM at canadian tire. $240.
Still will troubleshoot for battery drain. Have to remove seat anyway to get to battery terminal to clamp ammeter.

taranch

My wife's car died around the Christmas holidays. Battery was the original (car bought new Nov 2008) and with the coldspell we had, the old oil burner wouldn't start, even with a boost. I connected a trickle charger and was able to start her up a few days later after the really cold weather gave way (-15 celsius was the threshold and did the trick LOL). Car doesn't fit in our garage, so, kind of too cold to putz around outdoors trying to remove the battery from underneath the passenger seat, so had my indie do the work. Keep us posted with your findings.

Cheers

efzauner

So Good news, Bad news. Good news is that I changed the battery, and measured the quiescent current to be under the 50 milli amp level as per diagnostics.
The bad news is that I did not find any problems. Even the battery tested not so bad, not as good as the new one but not "weak" So still crossing my fingers that it was the battery. If there is an module that is causing an intermittent current drain fault, this will happen again.

MB wanted C$120 for the auxiliary battery. BTW it is not a UB1213 C1212... Those are just a tiny bit narrower. Standard ones also do not have the same connectors. The MB battery has a .250 and .187 connectors. The replacement batteries have 2x 0.187. I almost purchased one at our local Battery Expert store. I wanted to get a quality replacement. They only had their housebrand, "Enerwatt" imported by a local distributor from china. Narrower, no name. wrong connectors. made in China.. To many strikes. I put the original one back. I tested it at 2 amps and voltage was still over 12V.

taranch

Well, good luck.

efzauner

Problem re-appeared last night. Initially as ESP and tire inflation warning failure. Was able to start and drive car home.
Then next morning complete failure again. Yet battery is at 12.4 volts. Charging showed 15 amp draw. Will charge again..

perhaps it is the ESP system that is pulling the rest down

Will bring to dealer.

taranch

Take it to European Motorwerks. Hassan and his team will surely diagnose the problem for the fraction of what the dealer will charge you. If you're in Montreal, they are next door to the Ferrari dealership on Jean-Talon.

Cheers

Cheers

efzauner

Thanks I may just do that. They are a shop that you have good experience with?
The only indy I have tried was Joe Basilie royalmount west of Decarie. There are a few in that area.

I am in St-Lazare

Ed

taranch

Yeah, Hassan and his team are top notch. Years ago, I went to Joe Basile. One day, I was there for an oil change and one of the mechanics, who happened to be a partner, was swapping the alternator from one MB E320 into another identical MB E320. When I asked him what he was doing, he told me that the same person owned both cars (both silver and same model year) and that he was having trouble with one of the cars and that he wanted to rule out the alternator as a culprit. Needless to say, I never went back there.

Cheers

efzauner

So... Update
Alternator replaced: regulator overvoltage and over current. The thing tested at 300Amps. So apparently modules went into overvoltage protection.
Hassan at European Autowerks did a great job, very pleasant to deal with. There was a Bentley in the lot for repair and a lovely 928 too! I guess he is trusted!

Hopefully that was it and no faults will come back over the next days.

taranch

Hassan is a standup guy. He's been working on my cars since my first MB back in 2000. I'm glad he was able to help and he didn't clip you like the stealership. Btw, if you are a gearhead, go by his shop in springtime and summer. You'll see many varieties of Porsches, MB's, Audi's, Ferrari's, Lamborghini's and any kind of exotic you can think of.

Cheers

efzauner

On wednesday when picked up my R... I dropped of my 2005 C240 for rear suspension..
When I picked it up today there was a lovely Maserati Khamsin on the lot.. Gorgeous old thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maserati_Khamsin
Back in the day when cars where like women.. so sexy and sensuous!

taranch

Yeah, you'll see a lot of nice older cars like the maser as well as newer ferraris and lambos. You'll also see some rare old fiats & alfas with a slew of porsches, audis, mercs, etc. He used to work on P.E. Trudeau's Merc 190 cabriolet until it was sold. I remember seeing it there often. He charges a fraction of the price that Ferrari or John Scotti would charge for work done on exotics. I'm glad you found him and I'm sure you'll be happy with his service.

Cheers