| RE: turn the key and dash lights turn on, no power to starter
I'm not positive on this..... but it sounds like what happened with my 96 C280 a couple of times. This of course scared the hell out of me until I figured it out.
There were several times that I would pull the door handle right as I hit the unlock on the remote. For some reason this made the alarm system think someone had broken into the car. It would turn over but it wouldn't start.... I had activated the ignition kill function. I would arm and disarm the alarm again but wait until it was unlocked to open the damn door. Operator error I guess. After that it would start up right away.
If it's not turning over at all then I think there's either an issue with your starter or maybe the actual ignition switch. If you replaced the keyed portion w/o the electronics switch then you didn't fix the problem. If you have a keychain that weighs 15lbs stop doing that...:)...
Hope this helped... if not let us know when you get it all figured out.
Thanks,
Z | 
