SL55 AMG, SL63 AMG, SL65 AMG (R230) 2002 - 2011 (2003 US for SL55 and 2004 for the SL65)

SL55/63/65/R230 AMG: Keyless go failure

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Old Dec 30, 2002 | 04:21 AM
  #1  
Richard's Avatar
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2004 SL55, 2015 A250d, 2016 GLC250d
Keyless go failure

Has anyone had any problems with their keyless go - like one where it completely ignores keyless go card until the normal key is used, then all is fine again ?

R
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Old Dec 30, 2002 | 04:34 AM
  #2  
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SL55 AMG
The only problem I have with it is that it is sometimes slow to recognise the car, two or three seconds after I touch the door handle.

Richard, I assume you've replaced the batteries? I replaced all of mine when I got the car and do so as a matter of course every 6 months after a bad experience of being unable to deactivate the immobiliser miles from anywhere on my SL600 after sudden battery failure.

Electonic gremlins worry me because of the difficulty of fixing them and my own experience in IT says that they should log not just errors but every single action being taken. Sadly, the electronics for this car were designed when memory was still expensive and it probably has something pathetic like 64k of battery backed RAM. Nowadays, a 512Mb Compact Flash card such as is used in digital cameras would enable weeks of operational data to be maintained, allowing for easier problem diagnosis.
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Old Dec 30, 2002 | 05:16 AM
  #3  
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From: Berkshire, UK
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Originally posted by blueSL
The only problem I have with it is that it is sometimes slow to recognise the car, two or three seconds after I touch the door handle.
Yes, I get that - I thought it was part of the same problemm obviously not



Richard, I assume you've replaced the batteries?
Yes, I have just done that in one of the cards, if that now fails I will switch to the other card, if that fails, I will then take it back to the dealer.
As I carry the spare key, and that has a metal key and an "inductively activated" ignition key, one shouldnt get locked out even with dead batteries.

Ive heard that others have had keyless go problems, personally I suspect the keyless go unit is "crashing" - I know that removing the fuse and putting it back fixes the issue - (first time it failed when I hadnt locked it, which was good as I didnt have spare keys with me)
Nowadays, a 512Mb Compact Flash card such as is used in digital cameras would enable weeks of operational data to be maintained, allowing for easier problem diagnosis.
Agreed completely - they are very generous with microprocessors - the car is completely de-centralised - 68xxx series processors in each door, etc etc, but they should log everything.
MB have put something called "System Diagnosis" in place, which is a box that watches the interior network (CAN) on the car for odd things and stores them for the dealer to look at later, but I cant see that it adds that much value !

Ive often said that the challenge for the car industry now is decent diagnostic systems (its a pet interest of mine) - the problems that I had with the SL before I got it should have been trivial for the diagnostic system to find - someone in MB knew what was wrong, it just took 4 weeks to find the person !
- The net cost to MB was
A shed load of people time
2 * electronic ignition switches
1 * engine controller
1 * Instrument cluster
- And in tracing down the keyless go fault - so far
More people time
Front SAM module (that was erroring if you shook it!)

I think the problem is that the development time for a vehicle is a good few years, so the diagnostics seem like they are far behind !

Cheers

R
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Old Dec 30, 2002 | 05:34 AM
  #4  
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and after 3 years this cost could be ours! Nice business for Extended Warranty companies.
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Old Dec 30, 2002 | 06:40 AM
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SL55
The only problem that I have had (so far) is that after I have started the car with keyless go (card in back pocket) I get an error message in the display saying 'key card not detected'

This goes away after a few seconds.

This problem only occurs once every couple of weeks and I put it down to me being too fat!

Graham.
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Old Dec 30, 2002 | 11:40 AM
  #6  
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lol @ London Lad!! LOL

my dad takes the keyless go card AND the regular key at the same time.. would that cause any problem? Usually he only takes the regular key cuz all the other keys (house, mail etc) are attached to it
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Old Dec 30, 2002 | 03:55 PM
  #7  
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ordered keyless go, hope I dont have these problems
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Old Dec 30, 2002 | 04:16 PM
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Originally posted by mookie
ordered keyless go, hope I dont have these problems
Same here
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Old Dec 30, 2002 | 04:30 PM
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It only happens to me when I am trying to demonstrate it to skeptical relatives - ? Murphy's law.
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Old Dec 30, 2002 | 11:53 PM
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I had it on my 03 SL500 sport 13000 miles no problem with Keyless go.

AMGBENZ
2000 ML430
2003 SL55 AMG (January 03 Build Date)
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