Recent content by northernlights

Good point that only the rear wheels may be locked. I've been able to get it temporarily into neutral when I have jumper cables attached, but it always goes back into park. I may play around a bit more to try to figure out exactly what triggers it to go back into park (maybe a time delay...

I was thinking the same thing, but as far as I can tell the elements that need to be programmed are on the same board that had the part failure. I did make an attempt to repair the damage on the board - I scraped away what was left of the burnt up ferrite bead and put a short in its place. I...

Update: Well I putt the refurbished Tesla charger in and towed it to the dealership to get it programmed to work with my car, however they tell me that after three hours of trying they were unable to get it programmed. I don't know anything about what they tried or what the issues were, but...

My 2014 B-class has a dead (12v) battery (as well as other problems preventing it from being operational). The dealership wasn't able to fix it, but they "manually put it into neutral" so that I could tow it home. When I got it home I connected it to jumper cables so that I could open the...

I'll keep you posted - at this point I just need to get it back to the dealership to have the new charger programmed. I may never know whether FB2 is the only damaged part or not as I have swapped the internals of the entire charging unit with the Tesla unit. I though about trying to replace...

Photos of the Mercedes Charger, the damage component and the replacement Tesla charger are at https://photos.app.goo.gl/XuKYn61gkeJNxFTt7. You can view the activity stream for annotations, but basically what they show is: the first few pictures show the charger with the angled bracket on the...

Just an update. I bought a refurbished Tesla Gen 1 10kW on board vehicle charger on eBay for $650 and brought it to the dealership so they could swap out the broken charger for this unit. Unfortunately after working on it they told me it was incompatible because it had different plug...

Thanks for the replies. I've learned a bit more since my original post. The issue is the onboard vehicle charger (MB part # 242982062180) has died. I'm able to find this part for $5k from various MB parts suppliers, and I can find a Tesla unit (part # 6009278-00-F) that seems to be...

My B-class refused to start, so I brought it in to the dealer. Apparently the "charging unit" went bad and needs to be replaced to the tune of $10k! I'm looking around to see if I can find a second hand unit, or some alternative that is functionally equivalent that might be cheaper (i.e...

Soldering isn't difficult, but it does take a little practice. There are many good youtube tutorials, or since this project only has a few soldered components, you could probably call on a favor of a friend who is a do-it-yourselfer to help with it. You could also use a solderless breadboard...

I bought mine in New York (Mercedes Benz of Massapequa) and had it shipped to California without any problems. I registered it without issue and successfully got the CA state rebate for purchase of a clean air vehicle.

I used a simple analog circuit and some off-the shelf components to make a charge port illuminator. It turns on when the charge port door is opened, and stays lit for about 20 seconds before fading out. It took about an hour (longer if you are not comfortable soldering) and cost under $20. I...

I've had the car for a couple of weeks and have compiled this list of suggestions/missing features. * Onboard timer for charger * Navigation system should show charging stations rather than gas stations by default. * Illuminated charging port * Touchscreen for infotainment unit * More accurate...

I don't think this is the car that you are looking for. It is a nice vehicle in many ways, but the integration of the electric drive is not well polished in my opinion. As per your specific questions: To my knowledge the delayed charging is a non-existant feature. I bought a EVSE with a...

I posted this in the "technical discussion" forum when I was trying to find a way to activate Siri using the built in buttons (i.e. when listening to music on my iPhone over bluetooth and I want to change the playlist, search a song, or ask directions). I couldn't find a native way to do it...