1998E300 key failure
 

Just a quick post about my 1998 E300 DT which had the smart key stop working, no door unlock and no reaction from electronic ignition switch. Fresh batteries in key, full vehicle battery charge, key led kit every time button was pressed, infrared was detected with phone camera.

Anywho, a new key solved the issue, and ~only~ cost me $417 ay our local Medford MB dealership.

I kinda hate all of the solutions that go looking for a problem. My 00 Cummins needs a key so I go to the hardware store, give him my old key and $1.29 and walk out with a new key. The Volvo needs a dealer key and ~$400. but.....the Volvo I don't even have to take the key out of my pocket. I do have to keep key batteries in the glove compartment because it doesn't take a common battery.

If I could find an old car like new, I would. They were fine vehicles since neglected.

You could of got the basic key for $50 that manually unlocks doors and start the engine

Not on that car. Blade only unlocks door.

Update: Since the key replacement we have had a handful of no crank situations, where key turns all the way but no crank... usually starts after a second attempt, but today it took 3 attempts before starting on the fourth. Not sure what this indicates and so far my calls to the dealership it sounds like they would just want to throw parts at it, not my style of diagnosing things, not sure of the competency of mb techs. Going to go have codes read on Wednesday.

I was afraid you were going to run into this like I did with our 98 E300...

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/3956832-post3.html

Wow ,
Let’s hope it doesn’t get to replacing the eis but I’m
Not so confident in the morals of Mercedes shops. So jay-bob, what you are telling me is that they could’ve sold me a second gen (round panic button) and it would have been fine? I have the triangle panic button version they sold me. And it will eventually completely lock me out from starting if it counts too many no starts? Ticking time bomb?

Unfortunately the round button key is NLA.

Not sure what the long term behavior is if you keep using the key.

Well we will see if there are any codes stored but we will probably just keep using they key until it completely strands us somewhere. This car... love it and hate it sometimes , has prompted me to add roadside assistance to my insurance...

I am pretty sure that's about an $8k repair (mentioned at the dealer as the price to repair a w163 that has all the key tracks used up in the years they can't be reused) so at that point another car would probably make more sense.

Do you know when they switched keys on new cars (as in the oldest cars you can still buy the proper keys for), was it with the W220 and W211? Or did the facelift w210s come with them too.

My 2008 W164 and W211 original keys are round button.
My 2013 W212 and 2014 W166 original keys are triangle button.

So the switch from round to triangle probably happened at the beginning of the 2010s.

Oh wow, you're right I forgot

Hmm, that's later than I hoped. So it sounds like you risk basically bricking the car if you lose the keys or they fail for any 98-2010 or so Mercedes. I was thinking about dumping my broken 300SDL to get a CDI but it might actually be better to keep it or get a diesel W140 in that case lol.

One of my CDIs has a pair of replacement keys...no issues at all. I think JayBob was suggesting that the issue was with the W210.