veryswag

My keyless go driver’s door handle stopped working on me randomly the other week. It worked fine before and showed no signs that it was failing. I keep my car garaged, so the only water it sees is during car washes. I tested all the other doors & they work fine. The handle on the driver’s door was replaced once before. Figured the sensor in the handle had once again gone bad so I ordered the replacement part brand new from OE parts. Got around to installing it yesterday and of course something so simple manages to annoy me on football Sunday

Replacing the handle took 5 minutes. Then I tested it to find the keyless go on the new handle does not work either. I repeated the installation again making sure the connection was good.. Still nothing.
What are the chances the new handle is defective? Anyone had this issue before?

Mr. CVE

I replaced mine and the keyless part worked again. however I did notice when I press the buttons on the remote, while the light on the remote works, the car does not respond any more.
On the old handle did BOTH buttons stop working ? and same on the new one ?

speedyc43

I have the same issue, my drivers doesn't work, So i removed my rear drivers side handle and connected it to my front door yet it still did not work. Ive reverted to simply using my rear door handle. This is quite annoying.

veryswag

Yes, both buttons, the large one on the inside of the handle to unlock the door & small black button on the outside of the handle to lock the doors, stopped working at the same time.

Luxury4play

isnt there an antenna in the door? I would suspect it.

agregory23

I have had both of my drivers side doors fail to unlock at the same time. The black buttons to lock them still work though. Everyone has been saying just replace the handle like you did. But, as has happened to you, I am worried that at 250 a pop it won't solve the problem. Just seems weird that two doors would fail at the same time. This keyless go stuff seems inconsistent at best. The only common denominator was that it got really, cold around the time of failure which I know they don't like.

shardul

iTrader: (1)

start off my replacing one to see if it solves the problem

hachiroku

well most of folks here say just replace it and that'll fix it...

others state that STAR diagnostic will list exactly whats going on....


WELL GUYS, STAR diagnostic states that there is an intermittent issue with my passenger side, with no error for my non working driver side doors. my driver front door would work here and there, then failed...so i started always opening the rear drivers door...now that has failed. both passenger side doors have never had issues while STAR states they do.

veryswag

I've been using the rear door to unlock in the meantime too & it's very annoying. I ordered the new part as soon as it stopped working bc this is definetly something I want working correctly. I dont care about the other doors, but the drivers door keyless go needs to work.

I don't understand why my maxima that I've owned for 6 yrs since new has never had this issue, yet on a car that costs nearly 3x as much, this is a frequent issue.
It amazes me that MB can engineer one of the fastest sedans ever yet can't get a door handle to work right

veryswag

From what I can gather from older threads, it looks like if only 1 of the buttons on the handle stops working, then replacing with a new handle should fix the problem but when both stop at the same time, the issue is not in the handle and replacing it won't fix the issue.
you can test it with a known working handle from another door as suggested in another thread, just need to connect the cable & press button while handle is hanging to see if it works

https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/...ent-diy-3.html

read through this thread & like i said, replacement worked for some, didn't for others & there is no solution for those where replacement didn't work. except for 1 member but not exactly sure what he did to fix the issue from his post

Chomanche

Try putting the key in the ignition and driving it that way for a bit. Sometimes the ezs gets dumb and memory gets wacked. Im pretty sure the key signal goes through the driver door module to the ezs, then if the two rf nubers match it unlocks the door. Good possibility something got corrupt and now numbers arnt matching so it wont let it work.

veryswag

i'll try installing it again and giving that a try but im not too hopeful

5spd97

I am on my third drivers door handle in two and a half years. When I was replacing the handle the last time the plug in the door came out of its bracket and I had to take the interior panel off to fix it. At that point I realized that the insulation on one of the wires was exposed and was grounding to the door. To fix it I ended up removing the latch mechanism and the interior bracket for the door handle, which was a huge pia. I soldered and heat shrinked the repair and rerouted the wire so that it won't hopefully happen again. When I finished putting it back together at first nothing worked including the rear door handle and the power window. I was not happy........but over the course of the next day it magically fixed itself and has been working fine since then. Its possible that the exposed wire has been the problem all along.

agregory23

I swapped my handle from the passenger (working) side to the drivers side to test and it worked. Its definitely the handle that failed.

@5spd97 when you say the plug in the door came out of its bracket what do you mean? When I was plugging mine in it almost appeared the the plug was on a swivel as I could move it forward and back. I had to grab it with some narrow pliers to bring it forward but from then could plug it in. Was yours doing that or completely free almost dangling inside the door.

5spd97

Yes, the plug fits into a snap clip that allows it to swivel back and forth. Mine had come loose from the clip and disappeared into the door. There may be a may be a way to retrieve it without going inside but I would be surprised because getting the plug correctly oriented and snapped back in place would be a real ***** working from the outside. I may have dislodged the plug during a previous handle replacement but I was very careful and used pliers just as you did.

danaman11

Yes, it is such an easy job, but after replacing my drivers handle, the keyless unlock feature works, but the keyless lock does not work.
Anybody else have this problem?

mkiv_tdi

That happened to me.

When I bought the car I noticed the front passenger wasn't working. Typically one of the two functions of the keyless handle stops working...either the OPEN or the CLOSE. For both to go out at the same time is sort of suspicious...

Then shortly thereafter I noticed the window lock was left on by the previous owner, which by itself wasn't really a big deal. Then when i tried to put down the passenger window I noticed it had a ton of trouble going up/down, and it was dragging on something... I tried to re-sync it, and still no dice.

Long story short, the FEMALE END of the keyless go handle is mounted on a swivel. So somehow when the p.o. or dealer replaced the handle, they must have dislodged this swivel an so the female end unplugged itself from the male end that is attached to the keyless handle, and it was floating around in the way of the window track.


It was quite frustrating and nearly impossible to do from the "outside". I tried it that way for over an hour to clip it back into the swivel... I knew should have made a DIY as I knew somebody would need it.

But, if you want to retain some sanity, you'll have to remove the door card (three big torx screws, bunch of snap clips) and then CAREFULLY peel away the plastic lining to reveal the inner workings of the door panel. Then while laying on my back with my face just about directly under the door, I was able to snap the female plug swivel mount back in.


So with one 'fix', I was able to get my keyless to working like new again, and the window is gliding up and down like it should with no groans or hesitations. I'm just glad nothing got messed up in the process.


Difficulty level is about a 3/10. And if I'd have disassembled the door from the beginning, it would have taken 45min start to finish. But all of the troubleshooting and struggling to do it from the outside took me about 4 hours, 3 beers and a burger, and a ton of swearing.

Drift Motion

wanted to bump this thread as I have a similar issue
Installed a rear E63 09 door handle into my 07 E550 front door. Had to chop the extra bit off, and rest all lines up and installs perfectly. Before the replacement, button to lock works, but doesn't unlock. Now both the handle and the button locks the door
However, sometimes the handle unlocks and sometimes it locks. It feels like the computer is getting confused

Rest of the door seems to lock and unlock no problem and not confused