Urgent help pls with R230 central locking problem

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Kourosh

Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2006
Messages
59
Location
Cambridge
Car
SL500 2007
Help!!

I noticed today that I cannot lock or unluck my R230 (2005) SL350 using either one of my remote keys (I do not have Keyless Go). Neither of my main or spare keys work and the little red light does flash when I press the lock or unlock buttons on the keys, so I am guessing it is not a battery issue.

Rather more worryingly, I cannot even lock or unlkock the doors using the buttons on the dash even with the car running. Finally, I cannot open the boot, neither manually nor using the boot release button on the key fob or on the driver's door.

I am not getting any malfunction messages. The only other thing that I have noticed over the last 3 or so weeks has been that I often get a 'convenience functions temporarily unavailable' message when I switch the car on from cold in the mornings. Then my heated seats and the demister do not come on for about 5 minutes until the car is warm.

Has anyone come across this before or has any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Kourosh
 
One more thing. When I press the lock/unlock buttons on the key fob, my indicators flash as they should, but the side mirrors do not fold in as they should (and of course the doors do not lock/unlock). Could this be a problem with the car battery itself?
 
I would suspect battery issue (although the non opening door issue suggests something more strange).

The SL has two batteries. When the one in the boot (convenience battery) starts to get weak it turns off stuff in two stages (and you get that message)

Stage 1 takes out heated seats and lots of other stuff including passenger seat electric movement
Stage 2 takes out more stuff, including parktronic (so watch out when reversing out of the garage)
Other tell tale signs of a very weak battery is when you turn up COMAND it tells you the volume is limited due to low voltage (got that the other day on my R230 SL)

Id have the battery in the trunk tested. You could try disconnecting it, leaving it off for a minute and re-connecting as that will reset the control units, but I suspect it is getting old.

Richard
 
I would say you have two faults on the car

1 i would think you have a problem with the pse pump on your car this is causing the central locking etc not to work.
2 I would say you have a weak battery in the boot causing the convenience functions to shut down
 
Thanks guys - the more I look into the the more likel I will need to replece the consumers battery in the boot - does anyone know a part number/cost/etc?

As for the central locking issue, I agree that there is possibly more to this than the battery. When I manually lock the car using the emergency key on the driver's side, the passenger's door does not lock/unlock at the same time.

What is the pse pump?
 
Off the top of my head not too sure of the part number but if i remember correctly the price is about £120 for the battery.

The manual lock will only open and close the drivers door.

A pse pump it the main pump that controls the central locking system.
 
Karoush have you tried....

Thanks guys - the more I look into the the more likel I will need to replece the consumers battery in the boot - does anyone know a part number/cost/etc?


As for the central locking issue, I agree that there is possibly more to this than the battery. When I manually lock the car using the emergency key on the driver's side, the passenger's door does not lock/unlock at the same time.

What is the pse pump?

Hi Kourosh have you tried to re-synch your key yet ? resynching the key is sometimes necessary to allow the locks to open and close properly again, this sometime effects the dash button too. I know the procedure if you need/want to try it.:thumb::thumb::thumb:

The pse pump controls the locks, soft closure doors, rear headrests(some coupes like the w215) etc etc.
 
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Hi Kourosh have you tried to re-synch your key yet ? resynching the key is sometimes necessary to allow the locks to open and close properly again, this sometime effects the dash button too. I know the procedure if you need/want to try it.:thumb::thumb::thumb:

The pse pump controls the locks, soft closure doors, rear headrests(some coupes like the w215) etc etc.

Yes please!! I would like to try the synch!
 
Help!!

I noticed today that I cannot lock or unluck my R230 (2005) SL350 using either one of my remote keys (I do not have Keyless Go). Neither of my main or spare keys work and the little red light does flash when I press the lock or unlock buttons on the keys, so I am guessing it is not a battery issue.

Rather more worryingly, I cannot even lock or unlkock the doors using the buttons on the dash even with the car running. Finally, I cannot open the boot, neither manually nor using the boot release button on the key fob or on the driver's door.

I am not getting any malfunction messages. The only other thing that I have noticed over the last 3 or so weeks has been that I often get a 'convenience functions temporarily unavailable' message when I switch the car on from cold in the mornings. Then my heated seats and the demister do not come on for about 5 minutes until the car is warm.

Has anyone come across this before or has any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Kourosh

There are two faults. I had this on my last SL500 and again this month on my SL55.

The failure of the central locking is the PSE pump. This sits (foolishly) at the lowest point in the boot floor on the left. Nicely encapsulated in a block of foam (AKA "sponge"). It must not get wet. This is an R230, so it will get wet.

You might be lucky & have a blown fuse. Look in the compartment behind the drivers seat - it has a "false floor" that covers the fuses. You will see one 20amp (yellow) fuse around about the middle in a black holder designed for two fuses - that's the one for the pump. If it's gone, it might be a simple case of replacement. Unfortunately, that's unlikely, but always worth a try. 20 pence hits the pocket a lot less that £640 plus fitting for the pump.

You should have a removeable key - you will have to use that to lock the car for now. It will open the boot - look next to the boot handle - there's a slot for the key. You will probably have to "jiggle" the key to get it to turn, but it will. If you imagine looking down from above with the key inserted below, you need to turn it clockwise. When it is at the limit of turning, the boot handle will work. It will not work after you have removed the key.

The battery in the boot drives all the toys, some of which work even when the car is locked. When it drops the voltage (below 12.5 I think) you will get the error message. That will disappear after the engine has been running a few minutes.

You can trickle-charge the battery during this cold spell overnight maybe once a week, or drive it for longer, but the light isn't anything to worry about. If it keeps coming on a lot & you are driving a reasonable distance, then the battery will need to be replaced & surprisingly, MB are competitive.

Once the PSE pump is fixed, you must check regularly for water leaks in the boot. The foam block must be kept dry - I have a piece of plastic bubble wrap under mine so even when water gets in, it doesn't get to the foam.

Hope it is just the fuse - if so, you need to find out why it blew & attend to that.

Good luck!
David
 
Hi Kourosh have you tried to re-synch your key yet ? resynching the key is sometimes necessary to allow the locks to open and close properly again, this sometime effects the dash button too. I know the procedure if you need/want to try it.:thumb::thumb::thumb:

The pse pump controls the locks, soft closure doors, rear headrests(some coupes like the w215) etc etc.

Off the top of my head not too sure of the part number but if i remember correctly the price is about £120 for the battery.

The manual lock will only open and close the drivers door.

A pse pump it the main pump that controls the central locking system.


Ive been having thiis problem please send me the procedure i was going to order the pse pump this week but they have no return policy please i want to try this first
sl50005 at yahoo
 
:bannana:
There are two faults. I had this on my last SL500 and again this month on my SL55.

The failure of the central locking is the PSE pump. This sits (foolishly) at the lowest point in the boot floor on the left. Nicely encapsulated in a block of foam (AKA "sponge"). It must not get wet. This is an R230, so it will get wet.

You might be lucky & have a blown fuse. Look in the compartment behind the drivers seat - it has a "false floor" that covers the fuses. You will see one 20amp (yellow) fuse around about the middle in a black holder designed for two fuses - that's the one for the pump. If it's gone, it might be a simple case of replacement. Unfortunately, that's unlikely, but always worth a try. 20 pence hits the pocket a lot less that £640 plus fitting for the pump.

You should have a removeable key - you will have to use that to lock the car for now. It will open the boot - look next to the boot handle - there's a slot for the key. You will probably have to "jiggle" the key to get it to turn, but it will. If you imagine looking down from above with the key inserted below, you need to turn it clockwise. When it is at the limit of turning, the boot handle will work. It will not work after you have removed the key.

The battery in the boot drives all the toys, some of which work even when the car is locked. When it drops the voltage (below 12.5 I think) you will get the error message. That will disappear after the engine has been running a few minutes.

You can trickle-charge the battery during this cold spell overnight maybe once a week, or drive it for longer, but the light isn't anything to worry about. If it keeps coming on a lot & you are driving a reasonable distance, then the battery will need to be replaced & surprisingly, MB are competitive.

Once the PSE pump is fixed, you must check regularly for water leaks in the boot. The foam block must be kept dry - I have a piece of plastic bubble wrap under mine so even when water gets in, it doesn't get to the foam.

Hope it is just the fuse - if so, you need to find out why it blew & attend to that.

Good luck!
David

Hey David THANKS SO MUCH FOR POSTING THIS. I had exactly the same problem. It appears my R230 SL500 has a leak in the boot. Anyway the foam around the PSE pump got wet and blew the fuse.Lucky it was just the fuse. Merc replaced the fuse free and now this car is garaged or covered untill Merc can fix the leak.
 
Hi, Is this problem with water ingress and the PSE pump limited to the pre 06 SL (R230) or is it happening on the post 06 models as well? If so, is water ingress still the problem?

I am about to buy an 06 SL350........

Thanks


Alan
 
They have modified roof seals on later models. 06 won't be affected by the leaky boot seal
 
Hi SCL500,

I have an SL350. I think I have a problem with my PSE pump. If I leave the car for more than 24 hour, it will not unlock. If I hit the remote once, leave it for 30 seconds, and hit it again, it works the second time (usually.) If I leave it for more than 48 hours, I have to use the key. Once it opens first time, the remote key works perfectly all day long.
£650 for a new pump is scary & I would like to try re-synching the keys first. Can you please tell me how to do this?
Many thanks,
P-A
 
PSE Pump

[
My central locking on my R230 sometimes works when the key is aimed at the door lock and sometimes won't. if I start the engine for a few seconds it seems to work better any ideas
 
I seem to be having the same problem with my sl 350. The doors and boot will not unlock remotely but worst of all the boot will not open manually with the key. I've tried everything I can to open it without having to break something but it just won't work! I know my PSE pump has gone but I can't fix the pump without boot access. Plus my boot separator is open and I can't open the roof to gain access either! Any ideas on how to gain access without having to drill a hole or taking the 3rd brake light out.
 
I seem to be having the same problem with my sl 350. The doors and boot will not unlock remotely but worst of all the boot will not open manually with the key. I've tried everything I can to open it without having to break something but it just won't work! I know my PSE pump has gone but I can't fix the pump without boot access. Plus my boot separator is open and I can't open the roof to gain access either! Any ideas on how to gain access without having to drill a hole or taking the 3rd brake light out.

I have identical problem to $tumpy, how can I get around the boot unlocking problem, key turning but cannot open boot to check pump
 
Why do you need to get in the boot? I can tell you how but it involves the boot opening the opposite way (ie as if the roof were folding open). Will the roof fold open??????
 
Do not do what one of the Mercedes dealers did to a SL we saw, which was to put a bigger and bigger fuse in the fusebox for the PSE pump.

Until the wiring loom melted, at least 1 foot from the PSE pump connector was molten - luckilly it did not catch fire as the loom goes straight past the fuel tank on its way to the fusebox behind the left seat.

Richard
 

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