Asr Light - Again!

[earossi]

Six momths and 5K miles ago, I suffered a failure of the elctronic throttle actuator in my 95 E320. The new actuator was over $1K, but did cure the problem......or so it would seem. Since replacing the actuator, the car has been flawless, until this last weekend. On the freeway, with the car on cruise control, as we crossed a bridge (+5 degrees F outside temp), the ASR malfunction light came on and the car dropped into the "limp home" mode. We pulled off the freeway and shut the car off. On a restart, the system cleared itself and the car has operated fine ever since.

When I discussed the above with my technician, he believed that the system had operated properly. He believes that there may have been ice on the bridge due to the cold weather, and that when the car began to break traction, the ASR system kicked in and put the car into limp home mode. I'm not certain he is correct. In the past, when wheel speeds differed (one to another), I would get the yellow traction lite to flash in the center of the instrument cluster, but the car never dropped down into limp home.

Since I have spent three visits to my tech's shop and over $1500 on ASR related issues, I'm beginning to wonder if these issues can be sorted out at all! My greater concern is that until I know the problem is fixed, I have no confidence that I can take the car on any sort of trip.

Your comments and suggestions would be appreciated.