2015 MERCEDES-BENZ S550 4MATIC — Complaint #1671286
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about VISIBILITY:FIXED PANARAMIC ROOF/SKY LIGHT ASSEMBLY filed June 23, 2020
NHTSA complaint #1671286 (ODI reference 11330309) concerns a 2015 MERCEDES-BENZ S550 4MATIC and was filed on June 23, 2020. The owner reports the failure occurred on June 5, 2020. The vehicle had 11,400 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to North Carolina based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as visibility:fixed panaramic roof/sky light assembly, 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 S550 4MATIC cohort independently describe similar visibility:fixed panaramic roof/sky light assembly 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 2015 MERCEDES-BENZ S550 4MATIC shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
THIS CAR WAS PURCHASED IN CHARLOTTE NC IN WINTER OF 2018. IN NOVEMBER OF 2019, WHILE DRIVING DOWN THE ROAD WITH NO CARS IN SITE, WE HEARD A LOUD POP. WE COULDN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT THE NOISE WAS BECAUSE IT SOUNDED LIKE A ROCK HIT THE WINDSHIELD BUT WE DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING. WE COULDN'T FIGURE OUT WHERE A ROCK COULD HAVE COME FROM AS THEIR WERE NO CARS ON THE ROAD. THAT AFTERNOON WE PULLED BACK THE ROOF SCREEN TO FIND THAT THE GLASS PANORAMIC ROOF HAD CRACKED ALL OF THE WAY BACK. THE CRACK STARTED IN THE UPPER LEFT CORNER OF THE CAR IN THE CURVE OF THE TOP. THE CRACK STARTED RIGHT WHERE THE WINDSHIELD AND THE ROOF COME TOGETHER. MERCEDES CONVINCED US THAT SOMETHING HAD TO HAVE HIT IT. WE MADE A CLAIM ON OUR INSURANCE AND $10,500 LATER, THE TOP WAS REPLACED. 5 MONTHS LATER AS WE WERE PULLING OUT OF OUR DRIVEWAY ONTO A 2 LANE COUNTRY ROAD, WE HEARD THE SAME NOISE AND AGAIN, PULLED THE SHADE BACK TO SEE THE ROOF HAD CRACKED ONCE MORE. BETWEEN THE TWO INCIDENTS, THE CAR HAS ONLY BEEN DRIVEN 600
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1671286 |
| ODI Number | 11330309 |
| Date Filed | June 23, 2020 |
| Failure Date | June 5, 2020 |
| VIN | WDDXJ8FBXFA |
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.