my wife rolled her 99 E320 and it sit on drivers side for 1 1/2 hrs til wrecker got it out.The airbags did not deploy the, battery has a full charge and it has sit in shop for two months. When I try to crank it the starter will kick in but immediately everything goes dead. is there something that needs to be reset or replaced?? Any ideas? we are trying to replace the body but the running gear is excellent condition.

 

It has been my experience that when you have a full charge battery and everything goes dead when attempting to start that the issue is a loose or not connected grounding cable. So I would find and check all your grounds (i dont know how many there are) and make sure they are all connected and tight!

 

In all modern cars there is a relay under the bonnet which cuts out the electric fuel pump if the car gets a hard shunt or rolls over. The relay is usually a red rubber block about 1.25 inches square and sits high in the engine bay back towards the firewall and is usually very obvious. inside the relay is a pair of contacts, a ball bearing and a magnet. By pressing down on the button the ball is reset into a central position whereby it makes contact across two terminals and allows the fuel pump in the fuel tank to run, the magnet holds the ball in position. When you get a heavy knock the ball jumps away from the pull of the magnet and disconnects the fuel pump. Simple. Just find the relay and press down on the top to reset the fuel pump.
The classis scenario with this is when you have a tow bar fitted to the car and as you reverse into a parking space at the mall you hit the wall and it trips the realy.....but at that exact point you turn off the ignition and go shopping and do not realise there is a problem. Upon your return you crank the car having forgotten about the light bump and hey presto the car wont start or starts but only runs for a few seconds. If you know about resetting the relay it saves you having to call out the wrecking truck. Hope this helps, Gary UK.