Where are you Malcolm

[3898johnm]

I posted a message yesterday but I complicated things by involving two issues. It's a 1997 E230 auto well cared for etc. Anyway my tearing what's left of my hair out problem is this. After service at my local independent (but specialists in German cars !!!) I noticed that and unfortunately intermittently the following. Put key in,first turn the SRS light comes on and duly goes out in about 4 seconds.If I turn the key to position two all the lights across the cluster come on but in exactly 2 secs. all go out except the BAS/ASR on extreme left and battery light on extreme right. If I proceed to turn to start all is ok.Some might wonder why I should worry. It is an annoyance like a rattle in the dash and I'm sure most of us had this at some time in our motoring lives! Sod's law dictated that when I went back to the garage the fault did not show and they were very helpful plugging into the diagostic computer which showed no problem!! Remember the fault is intermittent. I'm sure the garage would quickly tire of me should I turn up again. I think the fault is more likely to show up after a ten minute drive. My question to any expert out there is this.If this was your mother's car and causing her grief what would advise her to do? (Not get rid of car)

 

[television]

Intermittent electrics are the hardest to find, sometimes one has to wait until a complete failure, my bet on this one is the ignition switch.

Only by pulling out the cluster and checking on what voltage is not there under the fault condition, is the only way to know, but again difficult as it does not always do it

 

[3898johnm]

Many thanks for your fast response Malcolm. Does it not seem coincidental that this happened immediately after the service when the engine management system would have been linked to the computer? Of all Mercedes owners out there has anyone else had this unusual problem? I have been a Merc driver for 25 years but of course up to 1991 we did not have all the gimmickry.

 

[television]

I agree to a certain point,if something had happened while on STAR it would be there all the time, many a time on a car or any other electronic item, another faults come up.

Simialr faults have been up similar to your, but again very hard