Avoid the FEBI neutral safety switch

[DanielK]

Hello,

I've been fixing up an '89 300E to sell it, and the information on this board has been extremely helpful to me. It's a testament to the quality of that information that I don't have a lot to add, since everything I've needed to do so far has been described very thoroughly.

One thing I can do is warn others about the FEBI neutral safety switch I bought from AllPartsExpress: http://www.allpartsexpress.com/item.wws?sku=MBZ074602&itempk=53093&mfr=Febi&weight=0.25

When I bought it my thought was, "It's just a switch, what could the difference be?" Well, in the couple weeks since I've installed it, I found out:

• With the old switch, the car would start in neutral but not in park. With the FEBI switch, it starts in park but no longer starts in neutral.
• Sometimes the car doesn't even start in park, so I have to move the shifter out of park and back into park for the car to start.
• On top of that, the back-up lamps only come on if I shift from park into reverse. If I shift from neutral into reverse, the back-up lamps stay off.

As usual, you get what you pay for. The OEM part is worth the extra money.