timstiles

On the way to work today I spilled some friggin soda on my center console near the window buttons and shift lever. Now it won't move out of park. The local Mercedes dealer has fixed these before and is quoting around $400 for the PRND selector assembly and another $400 to install it. Has anyone else run into this? I didn't wake up this morning wanting to drop close to a grand on my car, is there any cheaper way out of this? I'm in San Jose, CA and open to suggestions for other shops.

1) will it dry out like a remote control and work again ? : )

2) any used part sources I should try? Rancho Cordova doesn't have any


Thanks,

Tim

E55Cent

The center console will just pop right off, just lift from the back near the drink door. You will have to use a little force when lifting it up. You can unplug everything like the ESP and windows, so you will able to get to everything. You should be able to clean everthing out fairly easy.
Good luck
Mario

cte430

Something similiar happened to my E430. A beautiful summer day, not a cloud in the sky. Met a co-worker as we had a meeting together. Left my car on the roof of a parking garage. Dumb *** left the sun roof open. We go to our meeting and as we're walking in the sky is getting DARK. An hour later we come out and it was one of the biggest monsoons i've ever seen!! Get back to my car dry off the seats, and try to start it. Nothing. After a while I was able to get it to start. could not get it out of park. Called tele-aid and was embarassed to tell them what I did. I just played dumb and said for some reason I couldn't get the car out of park. The lady goes "sir, did you leave your roof open in the rain"? WTF!! Is there a hidden camera in this car or what. She tells me to get out a pen, so I think she's going to give me some kind of instructions. She then proceeds to tell me to push the pen down onto this little area in the console (never noticed it before this) and while it's depressed I should be able to move the shifter. I got it into gear and started out of the garage. My speedo, tach, and pretty much everything on the dash was dead. Also, the car would not get out of first gear. So I drove home at about 15 mph LOL. Took it to the dealer and my SA laughed his *** off. Luckily he wrote it up as some kind of "key fob failure" and warranty paid. I think it was a $400 repair, but It was to replace some fried electronics. That seems a bit high. Especially since it was just some soda. Noah could have built his ark with the amount of water that must have gotten into mine.

timstiles

Glad to hear I'm not the only one out there! Do you remember where that hole is? I'm guessing it's a brake pedal/shift lever override. That's funny you mentioned yours only moving in 1st gear, that's what mine did today before the shifter parked itself in park.

deuce zer0

another good reason to never eat or drink in the car.

timstiles

Fat chance of that happening. For the money I'd rather see Mercedes make the area by the cupholder a little more moisture resistant.

timstiles

I talked to a Mercedes service tech yesterday. When these shifters get wet they short and the car no longer knows what gear its in. It's designed failover is that D = 2nd gear so you can limp the car home or to a shop. It's new shifter time for me dammit.

SmilerMick

This does not make sense.

The original problem was that it was stuck in P (park)

The most common fix to that problem is to replace the Brake light switch,
(2 switches in 1)which has 2 functions, 1:Brake lights, 2: sensor to allow unlock of shifter in P.

If it still fails to onlock from P, the problem is internal in the electronic shifter module.
This module is covered by a metal casing, so its not so easy for liquid to get in to it.