VERY strange electrical problem, E320
 

My daughter has a 1998 E320. Today, both driver side windows came down by themselves about 2 inches and stopped. Now all windows will not work. Fuses are all o.k., both under hood and under rear seat I have tried all the switches - nothing. She also reported that her wiper did not work at all for a short time, but I checked and it is now o.k. on all speeds.

She is home now but windows are down and we are having rain showers, so assistance would be appreciated.
Have we got an early Halloween spook in the wiring?

I'd guess it's the switch pack. Any chance she dumped some sort of beverage on the switches? You could try running a hair dryer over the area for awhile, but chances are it's ruined.
Gilly

Plus 2 on having spilled something (or left the sunroof ajar with showers in the area); lucky she didn't short the shifter.

Pop the cover on the center console and remove the switch circuit board, try drying it as Gilly suggested, but pull it first. Blowing air around above it won't do much beyond deafening you. ;)

Honey, did you happen to spill anything on the console?

Well, there was some water but there was hardly any on it.

Sweetie, you could have ten gallons on it, but one drop inside it could have caused the problem.

Oh.
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Thanks folks, I'll take it apart tomorrow and report back.

You don't wanna know what this could have also done to the shifter assembly.........
Gilly

There was evidence of some liquid spilled in the lower left area of the window switch area as the LR switch was at least damp and there was some dried evidence on the front area of the board.
I have the switch assembly out (210 821 1051 or W0133-1598126) and I thoroughly cleaned, dried and inspected it so it at least looks good. Problem is that it doesn't work. I have also tried to run 12V to each of the contacts on the black plug that goes to the board (from its #2 lead) and I get no response from any of the window motors.
At the black plug, I get with power off: #1 gr/wh wire = 0, #2 bl/wh = 12V, #3 br = 0, #4 br/red =4.8v, #5 red/wh = 0, #6 br = 0. With ignition power on, I get 11.7V @ #2, 1.8V @ #3 and 3.2V @ #4

Both the seat motors do not work, the wireless lock/unlock system is also inoperative.

What am I missing here? I hate to buy damn expensive parts for it without knowing if it will help. Much obliged for your help.

All that crap runs on the CAN Bus, so stop trying to jump things. You can try jumping power at the window motor, but not through the switch. May have barfed a few control units already, but usually it's a pretty forgiving system. Let's hope.
Gilly

Oh and the reason the locks and seats and stuff get involved is because the console switch sends signals to the door control modules (DCM), giving the command to raise/lower the windows. The DCM is also controlling the seats (because that's where the seat switches are), and also the door mirrors and remote locking, so it's all pretty critically linked together. HOPING the new window switch will fix it, that one module can bring down the whole interior CAN Bus.
Gilly

Oh and to further clarify, by CAN Bus and sending signals and so forth, means that the switches send SIGNALS to do what you want things to do, not like you are sending battery voltage around the car like in the old days. To simplify and make it a bit easier to understand, say you press the switch to lower the drivers window. The lower control unit (switch pack), sends out data saying "UH, OK everybody, I need the drivers window lowered". The drivers DCM (door control module), say's "Uh yeah, ok, that's my job, I'll get right on it", the DCM then is the module that provides the power and ground to lower the window. They can send a lot of data on just 2 wires, all over the car, and the heavy wires that actually do the job are much shorter, in this case form the dcm (inside the drivers door) direct to the motor, which is only about a foot away, instead of all the heavy wires from the switch to the console to the door.
Gilly

I always get a kick out of hearing car ads on TV touting technology Mercedes had like 10-15 yrs ago, funny stuff.

Oh it is (comparatively speaking) such a pleasure to work on my dear old '64 Porsche. It almost didn't have anything electrical and what was there was 6 V.
Thanks Gilly, MUCH appreciated. There's a switch on ebay for only $115 that hopefully will work for her.

Sounds good, that should be plug and play, IIRC.
64 Porsche? That's a technical nightmare! (check out the pics of my old Sprite. Door windows? We don't NEED no steenking door windows! Or outside door handles! Or a top! Or......).
Is a '64 a late 356 or early 911?

So disconnect the battery a minute to reset the CAN bus. This will work for a while until the fault kicks in again.

Back in the good old days, I had a 60 Healey and a buddie had a 59 Sprite. We made the mistake of taking the Sprite from NY to go skiing in New Hampshire. Coming back, on a bitterly cold night, the top started to come off and we had to drive and hold on to the top, plus all the cold coming through those damn side curtains.
I had a hardtop on my car, so it wasn't too bad, but I swore off all English cars forever.
The Healey had an electric fuel pump right behind the driver seat so when the points locked up, I could pick up a rubber mallet and bang on the firewall to get it going again. a real fun car though. if you are 21 or so.
Thanks again for your help. I ordered the replacement part. Hope it works.

Success! I got a switch assembly on ebay for $115 and it now works perfectly.
Couple of things, to get the switch assembly out, you just have to remove the black bezel around the shifter - no screws involved. The black window switches are easily removed from the assembly by sliding the two black clips on the rear to release it, then folding it back. The whole thing will take you less than 5 minutes.

Gilly, my 356 was a normal production one, even to the damn 6 volt they installed. 12V was apparently an option. Production continued in 1965 when they also introduced the 912 to replace it as well as the 911 - as best I remember. I tried to buy a new '65 356, but the dealer wouldn't come down from the list price of $3800 - as I recall it. Such a deal with the current prices, but then again I could have bought a 300SL Gullwing for $3500 in another deal I turned down. Ah, to be young and stupid.

Many thanks for all your good advice!