2009 MERCEDES-BENZ E350 — Complaint #1852976
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SEATS:FRONT ASSEMBLY:POWER ADJUST filed November 10, 2022
NHTSA complaint #1852976 (ODI reference 11493045) concerns a 2009 MERCEDES-BENZ E350 and was filed on November 10, 2022. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 10, 2016. The vehicle had 38,000 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 seats:front assembly:power adjust, 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: yes, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. A complaint that flags a crash, fire, or fatality is escalated on NHTSA's internal review queue and factors more heavily into any Preliminary Evaluation decision on this make and model. 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 seats:front assembly:power adjust 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 2009 MERCEDES-BENZ E350 shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2009 Mercedes-Benz E350. The contact stated while driving 30 MPH, the contact felt heat coming from the rear of the front driver seat and noticed smoke coming from the rear of the seat, causing the back of the driverâs seat to catch on fire. The contact was to pull over and noticed that the back of his shirt had caught on fire as well, the contact was not injured. The contact was able to stop the fire by pouring water on the seat. No police report was filed. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, but it was not diagnosed, but the front driver seat was replaced, but the failure reoccurred. The manufacturer was contacted, and they agreed to replace the front seat. The failure mileage was 38,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1852976 |
| ODI Number | 11493045 |
| Date Filed | November 10, 2022 |
| Failure Date | April 10, 2016 |
| VIN | WDBUF56X99B |
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.