W140: 1996 Mercedes S600 Coupe - ADS Diagnosis w/ HHT !

A little treat, have a 96 S600 coupe come in with an ADS system defaulted to full stiff as it has a failure somewhere in the system. Rather than plug in Xentry/DAS or my Autel Maxidas, I threw on an original Mercedes HHT (Hand Held Tester) for a quick and dirty diagnosis on the system! Video below!

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AMG Week, Coming to a close

So AMG week consisted of 7 or so various AMG's from 85-2012, all of which were getting their winter maintenance in order so they have an uneventful spring.

Among these was a W210 E55 that needed it's rear wheel carrier bushings (metal clad bushing) done on both sides as it was skipping about on the highway and making some squeaking noises. Well, one side had completely welded it's bolt to the inner race of the bearing and I had to do some drastic cutting, heating, etc to get it free from the carrier/control arm. I even managed to break the ball free from it's shell....somehow.

Then an 07 E63 was in for an oil change and some previously diagnosed bad ball joints. Was certainly caught in time as this particular joint was about ready to just pop out of it's socket. 

That's all I really had time to take pictures / vids of as I was on a time crunch with life, among other things. Happy I essentially have nothing planned for the next week, so I can take it easy and take them as they come. 

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W211: The Most Ridiculous Battery Drain Problem Ever, 2003 E320, P.3

Somewhat of an update:

I started running the car on my scanner and was checking the coding on every module that I had access to as I noticed the teleaid the day before. So I started getting into the central gateway, telecommunications modules, etc and disabling every module of knowing teleaid was installed on the car. 

As I was doing the coding/module shut down, etc I had my meter in place. AS SOON as I hit "OK" to send new coding to the telecommunications module, amperage dropped. It will now bounce between 23-25 mA and every few minutes have a spike to 1.5amps for a few seconds. 

Which is telling me I may have isolated the draw to the MOST system. I think I may have put in an order for some of the MOST bypass connectors, so I'll be removing the teleaid module from the system entirely. 

Right now, I sent the car off to see how it fairs in the real world. Fingers crossed.

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W211: The Most Ridiculous Battery Drain Problem Ever, 2003 E320, P.2

I'll have time at the end of this coming week to see if I can isolate entire SAM modules from the system to see if there's any change. I went through some module coding when I had some spare time and found the teleaid wasn't disabled from the whole analog to digital ordeal in 2009 - I can only assume from this, that I should be going through all the modules and making sure they're coded properly. The car may be thinking it has components that it doesn't. Oh joy. 

After the car was driven for a bit, I pulled the codes and the car had a 9026 - M16/32 Heat Exhanger Shut Off motor had failed or lead had short circuit. I put my weekly order in with Mercedes and should have the new valve (211 832 0584) coming by Monday or Tuesday. At $36, it's a soft hit that MAY just solve the drain. 

One could only hope, would sure be nice to have a cheap fix for him.

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W211: The Most Ridiculous Battery Drain Problem Ever, 2003 E320, P.1

I suppose it's about time I started posting up some of the newer cars I work on, as some of the problems they have may help someone make decisions about moving from an older chassis MB to some of the relatively affordable in purchase newer chassis.

Alright, so with that....

I'm equipped to do anything, so let's see if we can get this one sorted - it's my younger brother's car.... a 2003 E320 (WDBUF65J53A150123) with a hair under 160k miles.

What it does

Battery drains close to dead overnight, needs a quick jump and it's fine for the day. The car had a red battery warning on when it was initially purchased. Two brand new batteries were put in along with much newer and updated battery control module. Red warning hasn't been back, all is well. BUT!!!

If you park the car, remove the key and just sit there without touching anything, there's a whining noise coming from the low center of the dash. The radio cassette/CD player (Audio 50, no nav) system occasionally makes a noise and no matter how long you leave things be, you will always be able to open and close the windows, move the seats, or turn the radio on. Essentially the car never seems to go into it's sleep mode.

Test

Per MB procedure for battery draw, every door was opened with all the door pins taped shut, the hood opened and latches activated shut, and trunk opened and activated shut. As far as the car knows, everythings closed. This let's me get to all 3 fuse boxes on the car, without the car's alarm going ballistic. With my meter between the (-) post and the BCM (battery control module), amp draw with the car not sleeping was around 4 amps and stayed there for about 2 minutes and would then drop. The car will CONSTANTLY fluctuate between 74mA and 1.97 amps. MB manual calls for 60mA being OK, though preferably being 40mA and under at rest. It will fluctuate consistently and evenly between the readings all withing a minute of the variants. Oh Joy.

Proceeding to pull every last fuse and relay in all the fuse boxes has no change on amp draw fluctuation. So there may be either a coding problem on the car from a previously replaced component, a module staying awake, shorting wire, etc... OH JOY...

I've also completely disconnected the alternator from the system, which has no change. Which is nice because the alternator looks to be a fairly recent replacement. Instrument cluster was also disconnected and isolated with no change on draw. OHHH JOYYYYYY.

What's been done

- Both Aux and Main batteries have been replaced with new

- New and updated BCM

- I believe the front SAM has been replaced at some point to chase the problem

Once my scanner get's through it software updates, I'm going to be running the codes and will have an update post with the fault list. I'm going to omit every low voltage oriented code, as those will set off multiple modules from the drain. Should be interesting to get this car sorted.

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