Please forgive me if I ramble, but I'm new to this forum. I have a serious problem and am desperately seeking answers. I have an 2003 S430. I parked the car a couple of days ago, and now the SmartKey works occassionally and when I put the key in the ignition, occasionally nothing happens. Bottom line is sometimes everything works and at other times nothing works.

So, I ordered a new key, got home and put the new key in the ignition and the car started. In fact, I tried the old key and it worked also. A few hours later, I tried again with both keys and neither of them worked. Now, one more thing. When the key worked, I locked the doors. I had to use the valet key to unlock the door. The alarm goes off, of course; then I put the key in the ignition, and guess what -- the car starts. But not for long.

I did get a malfunction message. I believe it was something like "presafe
failed." I can't get back to the message because the keys don't work.

Does anyone have any ideas on ths one?