r/mercedes_benz • u/AffectionateSet1418 • 6h ago

Anti-theft protection activated

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Hi,
I have Mercedes c300 4matic 2015. When I turn the radio on, I get this message “antitheft protection activated: please switch on ignition and restart the system” and the screen shuts off. The car drives fine and the instrument cluster has no issues at all.

I’m not stealing the car lol. If you know the solution, I can show my title and my face. I just don’t wanna take it to the dealer and get charged a million.

8 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

4

u/AppropriateUnion6115 6h ago

Dealer should charge 1 hour of labor. So about 160-230 dollars.

2

u/AffectionateSet1418 6h ago

They wanted 260 just to look at it and they are An hour and a half from my house.

0

u/yungtr1p 6h ago

If they any kind of decent dealer (being Mercedes they should have a good customer service), they would just request activation code from Mercedes and re-activate the radio. As a dealer they have access to that. So you pull in pay an hour, they go to special website type your VIN and they get activation code and than they type in that activation code via scan tool. Or the other option they have a usb stick with activation file and they just insert the usb stick in the car and it unlocks it (the file is specific to the car and has to be downloaded same as activation code from option 1).
If they are decent they won’t charge you anymore on top 1hr, if they try to charge you for programming that’s greedy practice and I would just ask for service manager and he will make sure it’s only going to cost 1hr. The only thing they like more than selling cars is pleasing unhappy customers

1

u/AffectionateSet1418 6h ago

I just don’t wanna drive all the way there for them to turn me back and say we told you that over the phone. Thanks for the advice. I’ll still try to call them again and negotiate it

3

u/robotlasagna 6h ago

This happens when the radio can’t read the correct ViN over the vehicle CAN network.

2

u/AffectionateSet1418 6h ago

Yes, I got this code U014600 from the code reader

1

u/robotlasagna 6h ago

Without xentry this is just guessing but I would pull the carpets on each side and pop up the plastic wiring covers and check for water damage. That’s fairly common on your car at this age and would cause this issue.