2008 MERCEDES-BENZ C300 — Complaint #1084641
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about STEERING:COLUMN LOCKING:ANTI-THEFT DEVICE filed July 9, 2014
NHTSA complaint #1084641 (ODI reference 10609328) concerns a 2008 MERCEDES-BENZ C300 and was filed on July 9, 2014. The owner reports the failure occurred on July 2, 2014. The vehicle had 108,952 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Georgia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as steering:column locking:anti-theft device, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same MERCEDES-BENZ C300 cohort independently describe similar steering:column locking:anti-theft device failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2008 MERCEDES-BENZ C300 shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
TL* THE CONTACT OWNS A 2008 MERCEDES BENZ C300. THE CONTACT STATED THAT THE KEY WAS ABLE TO TURN FROM THE ON AND OFF POSITION BUT WOULD NOT START THE VEHICLE. THE VEHICLE WAS TOWED TO AN AUTHORIZED DEALER, WHO DIAGNOSED THAT THE STEERING LOCK MECHANISM NEEDED TO BE REPLACED. THE VEHICLE WAS NOT REPAIRED. THE MANUFACTURER WAS NOTIFIED OF THE FAILURE. THE APPROXIMATE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 108,952.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1084641 |
| ODI Number | 10609328 |
| Date Filed | July 9, 2014 |
| Failure Date | July 2, 2014 |
| VIN | WDDGF54X78F |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.