Starting Difficult

[chiro]

1998 E320 4 MAtic...98000 kilometers

When I turn the key on nothing happens . I have to jiggle the gear lever in park to get the ignition to work. Is there a neutral saftey switch or something out of adjustment?

[compress ignite]

'Sure sounds like your neutral safety switch is out of adjustment/bad.There
are also a couple of marble sized white plastic bushings that will make the
shifter lever "sloppy" when they wear out(but,your symptom is the NSS).

[chiro]

Thanks for your response . Do you no where to find the switch.? I have not had any further difficulty the last two days but do recall spilling half of my coffee early one morning into the shifter console...I wonder?Just as an aside..I sent my instrument cluster off to BA REman to have the pixelation fixed, that is ,the clock and gear position indicator display was malfunctioning. a very common problem. They received it Wednesday and sent it out the very same day. I reinstalled it last night (3 minutes in total) and it works great. Warranty as long as I own the car. Cost $225...so far very happy. This is the second cluster in the car. Re and Re of the cluster was very easy. Shame on Mercedes, they wanted $1100 plus labour.

[compress ignite]

'can't seem to find it right now.It's either on the driver's side of the transmission
or inside the floor shifter (under PRND32).

There have been airliner crashes caused by coffee spilled on the console by the pilot(s).

If the NSS was unhappy with the coffee bath and has now recovered,Hooray!