Last week I drove home from work and the car just decided to have every gauge light go on turn off my headlights while driving at night and turn itself off???? I left it alone overnight and went back to it and it started right up but drove as though it was running on only 2 of its cylinders...? Its been 3 days and I went to try and start it up again? Well it started right up and so I rolled dwn the window and tried to put it drive and nope???? It wont allow me to move it into drive or reverse? it just stays in park! all my lights keep coming on and worst part is it wont let me roll back up my windo I and I live in WA where it has been raining for th past few days so I went ahead and taped up the window with garbage bags so it wouldnt get into the car but some obvioulsy did, I cant move it into the garage and I cant get it towed what do I do???? Any help would be great? I cant understand what in the world is going on with this car as of late?????

thanks for all the help in advance

 

Weird! I never heard of this problem before. Some others may have the answers you're looking for, but if it were me, I would start with removing the ecu and installing/seating all the connections again? Maybe the battery as well?

 

To get it out of park take a long flathead screwdriver and put it in the hole near the shifter. It a over ride that will let you put it in neutral. You dont even need the car on. Not sure about anything else sorry.

 

My first thought is your batter is going bad.... if it is low voltage or CURRENT it can make the car electronics act really wierd....

 

I would start with the battery as Mike has mentioned.
LOTS of weird things happen when the battery starts going bad.

PLEASE report back with status updates so we all benefit.

Thanks!

Rain???? What's that???

 

i think mike has hit it on the head. pull the battery and get it checked. do the neutral trick to get it under cover.

 

DITTO...on that new battery

 

well, my son's old '97 Grand Am just did the same thing. It is definetly electrical with his. Wasn't the battery, but we were just getting ready to replace a leaky head gasket. So, we are thinking moisture got into the eletronics. We are tearing into his this morning. The neutral trick will work to move the car, we had to do it to his, but it would run in limp mode, so we were able to get into the garage. You might not even need the screw driver, just your finger will usually unlock the shifter. I am with the others, try the obvious first, have your battery checked at the local auto store. We started at the battery and working our way up the electrical chain. The old car has been thru all 3 boys, and has 130K on it...it's been a good car, hate to retire it. Good luck, but you mentioned it had been raining, I would also look into the control boxes if it isn't the battery...moisture and electronics don't work well together

 

and if the battery is GOOD then check your alt output, these cars of today take a lot of electrical current for them to run correctly, system needs to see a constant 12 volts for all the electronics, just my thought. good luck and keep us updated.

 

Another thing to inspect would be the ignition lock, as German cars will do many zany things if the ignition lock heads south.

BC.

 

took it to a mercedes dealer and did a full scan and it pulled 14 codes....so i'm guessing it has something maybe to do with a short somewhere...? this is going to get expensive and I dont know if im ready to fork over all this money to fix this car.... this sucks and I just got this car running the way I wanted....if the car had a face the front clip looks like its moping right now

 

the codes may not all be related to this issue. could be a bunch of old codes that werent cleared. did you test the battery?

 

Had this happen to me as well turned out to be the altenator some were defective from the factory. First take the battery out charge it then test it. If that comes out good, then get the alternator checked.

 

The codes may be set due to the low voltage also, so once you have good electrical supply clear the codes and see if they return, make to sure to document your codes, to see if they are the same or new ones

 

Another thing to look at.

On the drivers side fender well inside the engine bay is a connection point for multiple computer grounding wires. Make sure the nut that hold the different wires is tight, as that is what caused Bat's Limited Roadster all sorts of electrical gremlins after 2 months of ownership.

On Bat's car, its in front of the shock tower, directly in line with the ABS pump, and there are 3 large gauge wires connected to it. If the nut is loose, the computers that connect to that ground will have an intermittent grounding connection, and will eventually short them out, like what happened to her car. She went through 1 ECM, 3 BCM's, and something in the Airbag system before they found the loose ground point.

BC.

 

a similar grounding issue gave me a month of headaches. the gaguges all went haywire, the ABS and BAS ESP lights all came on, lots of modules were replaced and it ended up being a loose ground.

 

Can you post up a photo where it is so if anyone else has this problem they can easily find it?

 

Here is the grounding point. I added a single point gound that ties the block, this grounding point and the battery ground at the fender together (the blue wires).