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2001 MERCEDES-BENZ 320 — Complaint #652124

Open-data reference.

NHTSA Complaint about ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:STARTER ASSEMBLY:RELAY filed January 4, 2008

NHTSA complaint #652124 (ODI reference 10213660) concerns a 2001 MERCEDES-BENZ 320 and was filed on January 4, 2008. The owner reports the failure occurred on December 1, 2007. The vehicle had 39,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to District of Columbia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as electrical system:starter assembly:relay, 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 320 cohort independently describe similar electrical system:starter assembly:relay 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 2001 MERCEDES-BENZ 320 shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2001 MERCEDES-BENZ 320
Component
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:STARTER ASSEMBLY:RELAY
State
District of Columbia
Mileage
39,000 mi

Complaint Description

VARIOUS PROBLEMS WITH ELECTRICAL, HEATING AND COOLING, SUSPENSION, POWER STEERING, LIGHTING, AND PURGE VALVE SYSTEMS. SPENT 7K IN LAST 3 YEARS ALONE. HEATING AND COOLING SYSTEM WAS REMOVED AND REINSTALLED TWICE AND STILL DOES NOT WORK RIGHT. STRUTS AND STEERING SYSTEM COMPLETELY BRAKES DOWN EVERY 6 MONTHS. I AM IN THE REPAIR SHOP EVERY 2-3 MONTHS! AVERAGE OUT OF POCKET (AFTER EXTENDED WARRANTY) $500... OUTRAGEOUS (X4 OR 5 PER YEAR!). WARRANTY KICKS IN ANOTHER 4K PER YEAR. MY RECORDS SHOW 14 VISITS TO MERCEDES REPAIR SHOPS SINCE NOVEMBER 2004... INSANE. THIS IS MY FIRST AND LAST MERCEDES! EVEN MY SERVICE ADVISER TOLD ME TO GET A LEXUS OR ACURA! *CN

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 652124
ODI Number 10213660
Date Filed January 4, 2008
Failure Date December 1, 2007
VIN WDBRF64171F

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.