The ABS light followed by the SRS light come on in my car intermintantly. All fluids are fine and nothing is wrong with the ABS. The ABS light alawys comes on once and then turns off. It(the ABS light) then comes on again, followed by the SRS light which shuts off the radio for about 10 seconds, then all goes away as if nothing happened at all. I have also noticed that when this happens it takes a considerable amount of power out of my windsheild wipers.
I have had the speedometer worked on in the past six months, so the whole instrument panel has been taken out twice.

Could it be a short in the instrument panel? Is it another 240 idiocycracy? It's a 1993 240 Limited Edition with 193,000 miles..

It is hard for me or my mechanic to figure whats going on since there is no memory in the brain-box, so my mechanic would not be able to figure anything out until the lights come on and stay on.
Any help or suggestion from anybody would be helpful.

Same/Same happened to me (92 240) last winter. At first thought it was battery, then 2 weeks later found out it was alt (on a rainy Sunday no less!).

ABS/SRS will flicker or stay lit when volts falls below 11.1

I'm trying to argue against the problem beign the alternator. The alt. went out on my '85 DL and has yet to be replaced. My car appears to be charging, so I think the alternator ia okay. I hope. I had sections of the main wire harness replaced a week ago. Since a whole new harness cost $800, we figured it would be better to chop out an replaced the fried sections. The problems started after the chop-and-replace job on the harness, so I'm going to point fingers at that before the alternator. Also, my mechanic informed me that he did not solder the new sections to the old sections, so I'm assuming this might be the cause of the problems. We took the car back in and hopefully when the harnesses have been soldered together it should solve the problem.
Chris

Having the mechanic look at the alternator too..

Chris, The ABS will come when you have a drop in Normal voltage, like when a battery is weak or has bad connections. The SRS light will Illum when the ground or control sensor under the pilots seat has an oxidized connection leading to poor electrical contact. Make sur eyou disconnect the batt when cleaning the SRS conections. The sensor is what activates the system. Also, check your electrical grounds and Batt connections. I'm guessing this is caused by a dirty connection in the system. These are listed in Bentley and the FAQ's.

LAst night I also noticed that the headlights, radio, and instrument panel dimmed intermitantly. I checked the battery connections a day ago and they were on pretty tight, but I'm going to check them again and also I'm going to check and see if the battery connections are oxidized. It would be great if the battery connections are the cause of the problems and nothing else.
Chris(Duluth,GA)

I checked the battery connections. There is good news.I think this might have been my problem which saves a lot of un-needed trouble shooting at the shop! The negative connection was loose enought that I could pull it off without tools. Also, the oxidation on both connections was horrible. While I checked this last week, it's a hell of a lot easier to do so when it's not raining or snowing and when the sun actually comes out and you can see things better! I ran the car about 20-miles down the expressway and all problems have dissapeared.
Chris

With the radio and wiper symptoms, my guess would be a bad ground
somewhere or loose wiring in the fuse box.
.
-b.

Checked the fuse box.. everyhting was fine.. the porblem still continued after I wiggled everyhting. I had the wire harnesses replaced last week.. I'm not suspecting that whatever is happening has to do with a loose something on the new harness. I'm going to see my mechanic, now that I have an idea of where the problem might be coming from