2012 MERCEDES-BENZ ML350 — Complaint #1558319
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NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN filed April 16, 2019
NHTSA complaint #1558319 (ODI reference 11196639) concerns a 2012 MERCEDES-BENZ ML350 and was filed on April 16, 2019. The owner reports the failure occurred on March 29, 2019. The vehicle had 70,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to South Carolina based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train, 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 ML350 cohort independently describe similar power train 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 2012 MERCEDES-BENZ ML350 shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
THIS CAR'S TRANSMISSION WENT OUT AT 70,000 MILES (2015), WHICH IS WAY TOO EARLY. DRIVING WHEN THE TRANSMISSION BEGAN TO ACT UP WAS VERY DANGEROUS AND POTENTIALLY AS IT LOST POWER COULD HAVE CAUSED COLLISION. I REPLACED TRANSMISSION FOR $14,000 AND THEN THE TRANSMISSION WENT OUT FOR A SECOND TIME (2019). CAUSING THE SAME SAFETY CONCERNS AS IT LOST POWER. THIS TIME I WAS NOT STUPID ENOUGH TO FIX IT AND WILL NOT BE BUYING A MERCEDES EVER AGAIN.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1558319 |
| ODI Number | 11196639 |
| Date Filed | April 16, 2019 |
| Failure Date | March 29, 2019 |
| VIN | 4JGDA5HB8CA |
Similar POWER TRAIN Complaints for 2012 MERCEDES-BENZ ML350
HELLO, REF: ML350 CAMSHAFT SOLENOID LEAK! I AM SEEKING OUT FOR YOUR HELP WRT TO A SITUATION WITH 2012 ML350. ENCLOSED HEREWITH IS AN INSPECTION REPORT FROM A RECENT SERVICE VISIT REQUIRING
FACTORY DEFAULT IN THE TRANSFER CASE
FROM THE DAY ONE, DURING THE FIRST 25 MINUTES OF DRIVING, MY NEW 2012 MB ML350 VIBRATES AND MAKE GRINDING NOISE JUST IN BETWEEN 40 TO 45 MILES PER HOUR STEADY DRIVING. AFTER ABOUT 30 MINUTES OF DRIVI
OIL WAS LEAKING FROM THE ENGINE WHICH WAS THE RESULT OF A FAULTY PART THAT MERCEDES HAS SUBSEQUENTLY REPLACED WITH A NEW RE-ENGINEERED PART. THE DEALER INDICATED THAT THE ISSUE IS SYSTEMIC WITH ALL BL
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
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