2000 C280 with about 117m.

My small problem turns into a gigantic problem after I spill a drink onto my shifter.

My car started acting a bit peculiar but it was very sporadic so I started to monitor it carefully. The start occasionally took several more beats instead of the usual near instant fire up. And then once as I was just sitting idling, the car turned off. Later on I had a difficult non-start. The engine continued to crank and did not catch. After waiting a few minutes, car started and ran fine. At first I thought the car was fuel starved and considered changing the fuel filter. I had a spare fuel pump relay and swapped that in but I still had an occasional stutter start. Then I remembered this sure reminds me of the problem I had with the crank position sensor. It was a random no start then after a few minutes, the car would start and run fine. Also the car would just die and then restart and run fine. I thought I had this narrowed down and then I had the drink incident.

I had a covered drink in the cup holder and knocked it over onto the shifter. I got to it quickly and mopped up all the fluid I could. I didn't think there was too much fluid because my drink was covered.

I tried to start the car and all hell broke loose. I had the difficult start which I attribute to my original problem. Car finally started but all sorts of lights stayed on. Although the car was running, no tach. Could not shift out of park. Turned everything off and tried again. Hard start again, tach cutting in and out. BAS and Check Engine light on. Moved the shifter into drive with the pencil trick. Tranny clunked into drive. Also clunked when it went into reverse. Drove home stuck in first gear, limp home mode, tach cutting in and out.

Got home and cleared the codes which was just P0150. No codes came back.

So tranny stuck in park unless released with pencil. Clunk when put into D or R. No indication of what gear you are in on the instrument panel. And first gear only.

I'll check fluid level and make sure that plug is not leaking oil into the wire harness.

What else can I do? Or does this sound like a dead shifter? The most sensible thing to do is take it to the dealer to get confirmation. Should be only a diagnostic fee. Shifters run about $600. Is this pretty much plug and play? Just disconnect linkage under car and swap out shifter?