I bought my 2003 SL500 a couple of months ago and since day one I've had the intermittent problem that the shifter won't come out of park. In a previous thread it had been suggested to someone with the same problem to change the brake lamp switch.
I've replaced the brake lamp switch at the brake pedal but that did not solve the problem. Any suggestions on where to look next?
Sounds real familiar I had to go to move the shifter left and right to get it out of park I tried the brake light replacement method but it did not do the trick. I had to replace the shifter at about 63,000 miles. You need a new shifter. This part came from Germany and it took 2 weeks. Good Luck!
Hi.
I Had the same problem on my r230 500 of the 2002 one day the shifter had some problem to get out of the parking, not everytime and a few daws later when I was going to the deleader the shifter wonīt come out of the parking I call to the deleader and the only thing they told me was If I was pushing the break(silly question),after 30 min of battle with the shifer the shifter came out of parking like magic.
They told me It was a electrical problem,think it was the mecanims that when you press the brake pedal release and get the shifter free,it was a security part that came of germany and the propietary of the vehicle must firm.
It were 600 or 800 euros.That was on the 2004 and the car was out of warranty and mercedes pay arround 80 or 90 per cent of that,they thougt that was rare.
Get paciencie and try to push the pedal and try to get out the shifter of parking,do it some timesyou can try to stop the car when you do the process,I dont know of this can help,and I canīt afirm that it will work,if does,put the shifter in neutral allways of course,and of course: go to the deleader(very tired of hear that) .
This will be the little plastic catch that broken, it s part of the safety lock where your foot has to be on the brake before you can shift the lever out of park. Many just remove the plastic bit and put it back without.
We usually try the brake lamp also when we see this also. But more times than not we need to change the shifter to fix the problem. For DIY you might want to search the 220/215 threads for information regarding this. They have the same style shifter and same problems.
Shawn
Mercedes-Benz of Annapolis www.getmercedesparts.com
I've got an appointment to take the car to an independent MB mechanic on Saturday. He's going to remove the shifter mechanism and send it out to have it rebuilt. $290 for the shifter rebuild and $225 for his labor. Hopefully I can get it out of park just one more time.
The outfit who rebuilds the shifter mechs says the 2003 S class cars are very prone to this problem and that they have rebuilt a bunch of them. They also told the mechanic to make sure the shifter was in neutral when shipped. Apparently if the shifter is in park when they get it then the rebuild fee goes to $490.
This happened to my 2003 SL500 about a week before this thread started. The shifter had been intermittently hard to get out of Park once in a while for a month or so. Then I went to the car wash on my lunch hour. They drove it through just fine and then hen they tried to move it to the drying area the shifter stuck. Over 30 minutes of trying to get it out of Park and the car blocking the whole car wash business! What a nightmare. It was finally towed to the dealer and the shifter was replaced for about $1300 or so. (The extended warranty company paid). As mentioned earlier, the part had to be sent from Germany. The dealer said that it is matched to the VIN number of the car.
An update to my situation. I got my car to the mechanic before the shifter permanently locked up in Park. That was the good news. The bad news was that my shifter mechanism was (I'm told) built in Australia and getting the needed replacement parts is a slow process... especially this time of year. So, my car has been sitting in a service bay for nearly a month now and it will likely be another week or so before it's back on the road. I'm on the verge of MB DTs.
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