2023 MERCEDES-BENZ GLC 300 — Complaint #1980204
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about STRUCTURE:BODY:TAILGATE filed April 2, 2024
NHTSA complaint #1980204 (ODI reference 11580776) concerns a 2023 MERCEDES-BENZ GLC 300 and was filed on April 2, 2024. The owner reports the failure occurred on August 23, 2023. The vehicle had 1,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to California based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as structure:body:tailgate, 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: 1, 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 GLC 300 cohort independently describe similar structure:body:tailgate 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 2023 MERCEDES-BENZ GLC 300 shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2023 Mercedes-Benz GLC300. The contact stated that while the vehicle was parked, and the contact and his wife were removing groceries from the rear of the vehicle, the tailgate was independently lifted due to the design of the keyless entry feature. The contact and his wife continued to remove items from the rear of the vehicle and the tailgate sensor became enabled, and the tailgate closed inadvertently, striking the contact's wife on the head. The contact's wife sustained a knot on the head that remained for a week. The vehicle was taken to the dealer. The contact was informed that the feature could not be deactivated unless the contact chose to deactivate the entire keyless sensor feature. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired by an independent mechanic or dealer. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure and the contact was informed that the option would be to deactivate the entire keyless sensor. The failure mileage was approximately 1,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1980204 |
| ODI Number | 11580776 |
| Date Filed | April 2, 2024 |
| Failure Date | August 23, 2023 |
| VIN | W1NKM4HB0PU |
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.