RedWarning Stop Vehicle

[Rod]

My wife called me in a panic this morning because her 2003 E320 gave her a warning on the dashboard, Stop the Vehicle. Something about the brakes made the MB dangerous to drive.

She had just picked up her father at his home to take him to his fifth Kemo session at the hospital. She turned around a drove 200 feet back to his driveway and parked the car.
She got in his pickup truck and headed for the hospital and called on the way.
I got a coworker to drive me to the car to check it out. We arrived about 60 minutes after she stopped the car.
I got in it and it started fine without any errors or problems and drove it back to our home and parked it.
I went back to work and returned five hours later and connected a OBDll to see if any malfunction codes were there and there was none, no error codes in memory.
I checked the brake fluid and its OK, the front brake pads are about 2,000 miles old. The car only has 70,000 miles on it and it has been care for correctly.

I wanted a idea from the guys here before I contact the dealer.

Anyone had this happen?

Thanks
A

[Gilly]

Car has SBC so pretty sure it will be related to that system. I'd recommend driving it yourself a few days and see if it reoccurs, since nothing is showing up. Possibly scanner won't show SBC codes. Could be something simple but doubt it. I had some sbc training but has been awhile.
Would try to get her to think about what she was doing when it happened and did the brakes feel fine or did they seem not as powerful as normal or spongey, anything that might help. Was the light on as soon as she started the car, was she braking when the warning came on or not, anything to help diagnose what it could be.

[engatwork]

As Gilly said.

I had an 03 in that the SBC unit had "timed out". You have to hook it up to SDS to determine if this has happened. If it has and the car is still under 10 years old MB will replace the unit at no charge. Not sure why they set it up this way. Nice that they will replace it at no charge though.

Not sure you are going to be able to tell much using the AutoZone type scanner.

[JimFreeh]

OBDII is only going to check on emissions related parameters.

There is a lot that it will miss. You'll need a Benz specific code reader to get at all the stuff the OBDII misses.

Jim

[Rod]

So far we have driven the car four times for about 150 miles without any warnings or malfunctions.

My wife says now she thinks she might have not let the parking brake all the way off when she drove it.

She says the brake light that on the dash when the parking brake is down was not lit on the dash.

We are now going to wait it out after she told me that.

Anyone know if the parking brake on, even a little, would that make the SBC warning turn on?

Thanks

[Gilly]

It might and I know a dang fine way to find out.

[Zulfiqar]

the display will light up red and say release parking brake on a W210 (late) if the speedo sensor reads any movement whether forwards or backwards with the parking brake pressed.

It also sounds the "mayday" alarm rather than the one beep.

I beleive the W211 is the same and surely a star diagnosis unit is worth all the money if you want to dig into the electrics of your benz.

[Rod]

I'm beliving the problem was the parking brake was not fully OFF since yesterday we drove the MB from Lafayette to Baton Rouge and around town. Probably 250 total without any trouble showing.

If there was something wrong in the SBC system would it have raised it's ugly head after driving around the 500 miles or so we have put on the 2003 since the Red Warning came on the dash. that's 300 miles of city driving stop and go heavy traffic?

Can I blame it all on my wife yet?

[Peter Guenther]

We have a 01 320 E class wagon, and the other day my wife drove it, she claims a light came on in the dash and said something about " brakes" and "visit workshop". I started it, drove it, and when I first started it it said something about no problems...its got 80k miles and have never done the brakes, MB did a brake flush 2/3 years ago and did not mention pads, they usually find something?

[lsmalley]

Why not just put the brake up one click and try driving to recreate what your wife said might have happened. If it doesn't say to stop the car then it was probably something else.