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1999 MERCEDES-BENZ M-CLASS — Complaint #834377

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NHTSA Complaint about SEAT BELTS:FRONT:ANCHORAGE filed January 3, 2011

NHTSA complaint #834377 (ODI reference 10373917) concerns a 1999 MERCEDES-BENZ M-CLASS and was filed on January 3, 2011. The owner reports the failure occurred on December 29, 2010. The vehicle had 120,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Florida based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as seat belts:front:anchorage, 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 M-CLASS cohort independently describe similar seat belts:front:anchorage 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 1999 MERCEDES-BENZ M-CLASS shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
1999 MERCEDES-BENZ M-CLASS
Component
SEAT BELTS:FRONT:ANCHORAGE
State
Florida
Mileage
120,000 mi

Complaint Description

NHTSA CAMPAIGN 99V328000. SEAT BELT BUCKLE RECALL. SEAT BELT BUCKLE EVEN AFTER THE RECALL INSPECTION AND REPLACEMENT IS DEFECTIVE, THE CONNECTION IN BETWEEN METAL SPRING AND PLASTIC IS UNSAFE AND UNSAFE, IT IS MADE OUT OF CHEAP PLASTIC, EVENTUALLY PLASTIC WILL FAIL AND SEAT BELT WILL UNLATCH. IT WILL CAUSE SERIOUS INJURIES IN A CRASH OR HARD STOP, MERCEDES IS NOT OFFERING ANY WARRANTY OR REPLACEMENT I WAS KICKED OUT OF THE DEALER WHEN I COMPLAINED, THEY SAID THEY WILL CALL THE POLICE ON ME. *TR

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 834377
ODI Number 10373917
Date Filed January 3, 2011
Failure Date December 29, 2010
VIN 4JGAB54E2XA

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