2012 MERCEDES-BENZ E350 — Complaint #2123809
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about STEERING:COLUMN filed August 25, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2123809 (ODI reference 11682880) concerns a 2012 MERCEDES-BENZ E350 and was filed on August 25, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on August 23, 2025. The vehicle had 420,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Massachusetts based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as steering:column, 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 steering:column 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 E350 shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owned a 2012 Mercedes-Benz E350. The contact stated that while attempting to shift to drive(D), the gear shifter detached from the steering column. No warning light was illuminated. Neither a dealer nor an independent mechanic was contacted. The vehicle was not taken to a dealer or independent mechanic to be diagnosed. The vehicle was not repaired. The vehicle was towed to the residence by AAA. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 420,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2123809 |
| ODI Number | 11682880 |
| Date Filed | August 25, 2025 |
| Failure Date | August 23, 2025 |
| VIN | WDDHF8JBXCA |
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.