SL350 stuck in park

[DickusMaximus]

Reposting as previous question had incorrect title

---

Hi folks,

Common problem which *should* be an easy fix...

Didn't use car so aux battery run down over winter

Stuck in Park as per normal operation when aux battery borked

Replaced aux battery

Removed starter battery and charged to 100% with Ctek smart charger

Replaced starter and aux batteries in correct order - aux out starter out then starter in and finally aux in

All aux featured work, car starts BUT red low battery warming light still on, alarm goes off every 2 mins and ODBC says no codes found. More importantly the red battery symbol is still lit and so it's still stuck in Park

Essentially I believe I just need to find out how to 'tell' car that it has 2 good batteries

Any advice very much appreciated

Thank you

Richard
Brighton

[Watchman]

Had this problem recently with my wife's 2012 E350DCI after she left it for a week during a cold spell. She came back and it would start but the dash lit up like Christmas and it wouldn't go into gear.

I ran it for a while on the drive, then left it switched off for a while to let the heat soak back into the car. When I went back out to it, it fired up, went into gear and only one warning light remained. I took it for a drive for 10 mins then left it on the drive. When my wife used it an hour or so later, the remaining dash light had gone out and it was all working fine again.

[Monkeylegend]

Are you sure the convenience battery is fully charged, they are very voltage sensitive. Might be worthwhile putting it one trickle charger overnight if you have one.

I had to get a battery code erased when I replaced my starter battery. Have you read the codes with Star diagnostics?

I always leave a trickle charge on the aux battery now, since having all sorts of warning lights due to lo voltage, and haven't had any issues since doing this.

[DickusMaximus]

Monkeylegend said:

Are you sure the convenience battery is fully charged, they are very voltage sensitive. Might be worthwhile putting it one trickle charger overnight if you have one.

I had to get a battery code erased when I replaced my starter battery. Have you read the codes with Star diagnostics?

I always leave a trickle charge on the aux battery now, since having all sorts of warning lights due to lo voltage, and haven't had any issues since doing this.

Hmm...I did take the battery from the box it arrived in straight to the car. I'd *assumed* it'd be ready charged. Perhaps skool boy error? As an AGM it should be 100% (says pistonheads :-) )

Edited by DickusMaximus on Sunday 19th February 20:54

[DickusMaximus]

Monkeylegend said:

Are you sure the convenience battery is fully charged, they are very voltage sensitive. Might be worthwhile putting it one trickle charger overnight if you have one.

I had to get a battery code erased when I replaced my starter battery. Have you read the codes with Star diagnostics?

I always leave a trickle charge on the aux battery now, since having all sorts of warning lights due to lo voltage, and haven't had any issues since doing this.

Hmm...I did take the battery from the box it arrived in straight to the car. I'd *assumed* it'd be ready charged. Perhaps skool boy error? As an AGM it should be 100% (says pistonheads :-) )

Edited by DickusMaximus on Sunday 19th February 21:57

[Monkeylegend]

Worth a check just to eliminate any battery issues. Mine will throw up all sorts of warning messages when the voltage drops even slightly, the drain on these cars is quite high.

[DickusMaximus]

Uh boy...

Charged newcaux battery which did go from 12.54 to 13.6 however on replacing it the red battery light Still comes on and therefore stuck in Park. Still nothing on generic ODB reader

[Monkeylegend]

You need to get it on Star.

A bit difficult when it is stuck in park.

A browse /search of one of the Merc specific forums will probably help you more than PH to be honest. They generally have a list of good indy garages as well, worth giving one a call maybe.

Edited by Monkeylegend on Tuesday 21st February 09:51

Edited by Monkeylegend on Tuesday 21st February 09:51

[Monkeylegend]

Is yours the 5 or 7 speed box?

[Dunit]

I found the normal obd reader useless on a Merc.
I invested in a dedicated Carsoft reader .
They are about £100 on the bay.

[Watchman]

Dunit said:

I found the normal obd reader useless on a Merc.
I invested in a dedicated Carsoft reader .
They are about £100 on the bay.

Useless, in what way?

I have a £2 ELM327 Bluetooth dongle and Torque Pro for a couple of quid more. With these, I can read and reset all faults, and get web-lookups to find out where replacement parts can be sourced and their prices.

OBDII doesn't allow you to interrogate deeper functions that you'd normally require STAR for but to understand what your dashboard Christmas lights are telling you, it's spot-on.

[Monkeylegend]

If you google SL350 stuck in park it takes you to the MBclub website and the relevant thread.

Quoting from that site from a post made by a very well respected indy in Portsmouth:

"Remove the gear selector trim and tap the gear selector module with a small hammer at the same time as pulling the gear lever. This makes the pin jump out allowing it to come out of park"

Goes on to say might need a new gear selector module to fix it. Apparently this is a common failure.

HTH.

[Dunit]

Watchman said:

Dunit said:

I found the normal obd reader useless on a Merc.
I invested in a dedicated Carsoft reader .
They are about £100 on the bay.

Useless, in what way?

I have a £2 ELM327 Bluetooth dongle and Torque Pro for a couple of quid more. With these, I can read and reset all faults, and get web-lookups to find out where replacement parts can be sourced and their prices.

OBDII doesn't allow you to interrogate deeper functions that you'd normally require STAR for but to understand what your dashboard Christmas lights are telling you, it's spot-on.

I had the ELM unit that plugged into a laptop ,Worked fine on our Citroen and Ford but would not communicate with my Boxster or my W204.
Recently my ML320 cdi would not start and when it did glow plug light was on continuesly.
Plug in a friend's OBD reader and came back no faults as per original poster.
Got a Carsoft reader and plugged in and brought up the complete Mercedes model range and the fault code for no 2&5 glow plug s and the failed glow plug controller.
From memory it seems to do all what my Star unit used to do.
In the old days Mercedes would not sell a Star unit to a non franchise dealers not sure if that's still the case?

[Watchman]

Everyday is a school day

I need to STAR encode my GL to react when my towbar electrics detect I've plugged something in. Could your machine do that? I think it's supposed to turn off revese lights, fog lights, and set the suspension up in some way to stabilise a trailer.

Also, I've been changing exterior bulbs for LED equivalents. A guy on an American Merc forum reckoned his local dealer changed his car so that it wouldn't negatively react to LEDs. I'm sceptical about this but again, is this something your machine could do?

Sorry for the questions but if that could give me the sort of control I believe is possible, it'd allow me to experiment instead of paying Merc to do it.

[DickusMaximus]

Monkeylegend said:

If you google SL350 stuck in park it takes you to the MBclub website and the relevant thread.

Quoting from that site from a post made by a very well respected indy in Portsmouth:

"Remove the gear selector trim and tap the gear selector module with a small hammer at the same time as pulling the gear lever. This makes the pin jump out allowing it to come out of park"

Goes on to say might need a new gear selector module to fix it. Apparently this is a common failure.

HTH.

Thank you fir finding that however I had found it last month and tried it but I'm aware that in my case (unless it's a huge coincidence) it's the battery going flat which caused the issue and also there are other threads stating it can damage the gear selector. Plus when I really seriously whacked the bugger it still didn't shift :-)

Waiting for forum approval to post my issue on that site now

Richard

[Monkeylegend]

Hopefully the battery issue will sort it.

[Dunit]

Watchman said:

Everyday is a school day

I need to STAR encode my GL to react when my towbar electrics detect I've plugged something in. Could your machine do that? I think it's supposed to turn off revese lights, fog lights, and set the suspension up in some way to stabilise a trailer.

Also, I've been changing exterior bulbs for LED equivalents. A guy on an American Merc forum reckoned his local dealer changed his car so that it wouldn't negatively react to LEDs. I'm sceptical about this but again, is this something your machine could do?

Sorry for the questions but if that could give me the sort of control I believe is possible, it'd allow me to experiment instead of paying Merc to do it.

Why not give Carsoft a email, They have been supplying the independent German car specialists for years with dedicated equipment.
Anything that you can do yourself is going to be way better than paying main dealer prices.

[Watchman]

The website doesn't specifically say that it can do what I've noted above, however it looks incredibly comprehensive so I fired them an email.

300 quid... given that I'm likely to keep this car for 5 years, and both my wife and I are pretty much guaranteed Mercedes owners on-going, it could be a good investment.

[Hi]

Not too sure on the battery issue, perhaps check the regulator thingy is ok (in front of the battery in the boot).

If it is total coincidence and you do have the selector lever fault where the plastic bracket breaks then I can help you fix it without having to spend £1k on a new selector unit like the specialists tell you is the only option!

[Dunit]

Watchman said:

The website doesn't specifically say that it can do what I've noted above, however it looks incredibly comprehensive so I fired them an email.

300 quid... given that I'm likely to keep this car for 5 years, and both my wife and I are pretty much guaranteed Mercedes owners on-going, it could be a good investment.

Hold on a mo, When you mentioned £300 I looked at their site but could not find my reader,so back on the bay and the reader I bought is made by icarsoft industry.
It's called a icarsoft 980 and its on there at the mo for £104 with full UK support.
This company is UK based and the eBay site shows some good info what it can do with plenty of feedback.
Hope this helps.
Also on the feedback one guy reset the battery warning light on a w211 after changing battery's and controller
I suppose that the gear change control is receiving a signal from the brake pedal being applied?

Edited by Dunit on Thursday 23 February 09:29