Greetings to all

[Midlifecrisis999]

Thought I would join up and see if any of the learned chaps on here can diagnose a R230 SL350 cluster problem.

Every time I press the left hand buttons on the steering wheel, it causes a reset of the instrument cluster and then cruise becomes inoperative.

Every press causes the instruments to reset.

Switch engine off and on and all works again. Until I press the left hand buttons in the steering wheel.

Any ideas?

 

[John Laidlaw]

Welcome, lot of knowledgeable R230 owners on here
My first thought is steering column module but your best bet would be to get the car on to a Star diagnostic to be more sure
Take your pick from these, Mercland at Nuneaton is well respected as are some of the others
http://www.mercedesspecialistfinder.co.uk/search/?postcode=WS13+6AE&category=14&distance=50

 

[carlls]

hi and welcome to the forum

 

[LostKiwi]

Hi and welcome.
Concur with John.

 

[mercmancdi]

Hi welcome

 

[Srdl]

Hi @Midlifecrisis999 and welcome to the forum.

 

[A.J.]

Hi, welcome to the forum

 

[Midlifecrisis999]

Welcome, lot of knowledgeable R230 owners on here
My first thought is steering column module but your best bet would be to get the car on to a Star diagnostic to be more sure
Take your pick from these, Mercland at Nuneaton is well respected as are some of the others
http://www.mercedesspecialistfinder.co.uk/search/?postcode=WS13+6AE&category=14&distance=50

 

[Midlifecrisis999]

Thank you.

 

[Midlifecrisis999]

Hello,

Thought I would share my musings and thoughts on my beautiful and equally frustrating SL350. I have a problem which numerous techies have tried to diagnose, and have offered their view on what may be wrong. “It’s the ECU, it’s the instrument cluster, it’s the click spring, it’s the can-bus, its the eis” no one seems to know!!!

As there hasn’t been a consensus of the cause of the fault, I don’t want to be replacing parts and just hoping it cures the problem. So I have googled everything about faults and I believe that I might have found the offending source.

So I wanted to ask the skilled and knowledgeable people on here, if my conclusions seem logical and would explain the symptoms?

Firstly, the symptoms and then my deductions. Then I invite feedback on if it sounds plausible or not.
I’m not skilled with cars - I drive them not fix them. So go easy on me.

Symptoms

When I’m driving, the Instrument cluster resets itself whenever I press the left multifunction buttons on the steering wheel. So I am unable to select a mode or see some display information. The display restarts and runs through the startup checks and then informs me that I have lost cruise control. Press the left multifunction buttons again and instrument cluster reboots and I tells me that cruise is inoperable. So effectively, I can no longer scroll through the modes using the multifunction buttons and get to my telephone or radio or even reset the trip mileage. I get stuck in a reboot loop.

However, I found out that on initially starting the car, if I didn’t press the multifunctional buttons then cruise control would work as it should. Until, of course I tried to scroll through the modes using the button. Then back into the reboot loop I go.

Then an idea formed. Could I scroll through my modes using the multifunction buttons before I actually start the car, with key in 2 position. I found out I could. And all systems work when I do start up, even cruise as long as I don’t press the wheel buttons.

This got me thinking that the car is fine before I start it up. And it’s fine when I start it up and select the auto for drive. So I know the multifunctional buttons work ok, because they do before I start the engine. And I know that cruise will work unless I press the multifunctional button.

So when the multifunction button is pressed when the car is speeding down the road, what is different? The conclusion I came to was the gear selector level has been moved from park to drive position. Could the movement of the auto box in someway be interacting with the multifunction button resetting loop? And if the cars ECU had found a fault in the auto box, would it not switch off the cruise control as a safety precaution because it thinks it can’t control it because of the auto gear issue?

My reasoning is that before I start the car the multifunction buttons change the modes. Because the ECU and gear system have’t Been involved as yet. When the car is started and put in drive, cruise will work until I hit a multifunctional button which triggers a reset when the gear is in drive and then a reboot of the instrument cluster and the disabling of cruise.

So is my source fault likely to be the electronic selector lever module? So bought myself a diagnostic machine, connected it up and it’s shown up loads of issues but it also thrown up P1856.

So any thoughts on if the electronic selector level module fault could be the source of this nightmare. And does it explain the symptoms?.

 

[Srdl]

I’m not sure what sort of response you will get from this under “Introductions” but, if nothing much is forthcoming, it may be worth copying your note to a new thread in the “Electrics.....” section of the forum

 

[John Laidlaw]

^ welcome and what he said
It’s best there to be honest then you’ll get the folks who have the appropriate skills seeing it, in introductions you’ll not necessarily get a big audience

 

[Srdl]

Yep, it worked. All the techies are putting their thoughts on the other thread!