2008 MERCEDES-BENZ E350 — Complaint #1474736
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:ENGINE:GASOLINE:BELTS AND ASSOCIATED PULLEYS filed June 11, 2018
NHTSA complaint #1474736 (ODI reference 11101061) concerns a 2008 MERCEDES-BENZ E350 and was filed on June 11, 2018. The owner reports the failure occurred on May 26, 2018. The vehicle had 145,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Tennessee based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as engine and engine cooling:engine:gasoline:belts and associated pulleys, 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 E350 cohort independently describe similar engine and engine cooling:engine:gasoline:belts and associated pulleys 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 E350 shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
TL* THE CONTACT OWNS A 2008 MERCEDES-BENZ E350. THE CONTACT STATED THAT THE HARMONIC BALANCER FRACTURED WITHOUT WARNING AND CAUSED THE SERPENTINE BELT TO DETACH. AS A RESULT, THE POWER STEERING AND BRAKING ABILITY FAILED. THE VEHICLE WAS COASTED TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD AND TOWED TO AN INDEPENDENT MECHANIC. THE MECHANIC REPLACED THE BOLT, HARMONIC BALANCER, AND THE SERPENTINE BELT. THE VEHICLE WAS NOT INSPECTED AND DIAGNOSED BY A DEALER. THE MANUFACTURER WAS NOTIFIED OF THE FAILURE. THE APPROXIMATE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 145,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1474736 |
| ODI Number | 11101061 |
| Date Filed | June 11, 2018 |
| Failure Date | May 26, 2018 |
| VIN | WDBUF87X08B |
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.