Crankshaft Position Sensor problems of the 2003 Mercedes Benz E320

Vehicle engine suddenly and without warning stopped running while being driven. This could have caused a serious or fatal accident if it had occurred on a major highway. Mercedes benz of west chester replaced the crankshaft position sensor. The occurrence was stored in vehicle electronics. The fault was an electrical short in the crankshaft position sensor. Mercedes determined the crankshaft sensor gets hot when engine running and causes internal resistance to rise to the point of shorting out. Mercedes benz stated that a failure of this part should not have shut the vehicle off completely but rather should have resulted in the vehicle not being able to be restarted once it was stopped in ordinary operation. This is very dangerous!.

While traveling in the far left lane on a four lane highway the engine on the car stops in addition to the check engine light coming on. I could not move to the left shoulder because it was an additional lane for high occupancy vehicles which was also barricaded. I immediately placed on my flashers and commenced to change lanes to get off of the highway. Where this also occurred was where an on-ramp connects which added on another obstacle in an attempt to get off of the highway. It was very fortunate and lucky that no accident occurred as in the dallas area during rush hour it is very hard to just change to one lane with a running car let alone changing lanes 3 times plus dealing with merging traffic from an on-ramp with a car that is not running. After having the car towed to the dealer, the crank shaft sensor was found to be the defect. It is clearly a safety flaw by the vehicle manufacturer to completely stop an engine when a defect occurs on a sensor. In this condition the vehicle should only turn on the check engine light instead of turning the car off to place the operator into a potential deadly situation.

The car stalled while driving approx. 35 mph, this was the 4th time it stalled, the 3 other times car was not going as fast. One at a stop sign, the other 2 at about 20 mph. When car cooled off was able to start it. The 4th time could not restart, towed to mechanic found to be cps (crankshaft position sensor. Researched online found numerous complaints. An obvious problem! a dangerous problem!.