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2001 MERCEDES-BENZ ML320 — Complaint #929081

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NHTSA Complaint about ELECTRONIC STABILITY CONTROL:AUTOMATIC (ASC) filed July 19, 2012

NHTSA complaint #929081 (ODI reference 10466598) concerns a 2001 MERCEDES-BENZ ML320 and was filed on July 19, 2012. The owner reports the failure occurred on May 14, 2012. The vehicle had 182,000 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 electronic stability control:automatic (asc), 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 ML320 cohort independently describe similar electronic stability control:automatic (asc) 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 ML320 shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2001 MERCEDES-BENZ ML320
Component
ELECTRONIC STABILITY CONTROL:AUTOMATIC (ASC)
State
California
Mileage
182,000 mi

Complaint Description

ON OR ABOUT MAY 14, 2012, WHILE I WAS DRIVING ON THE FREEWAY AT FULL FREEWAY SPEED, THE VEHICLE SUDDENLY SELF-INITIATED A CONTINUOUS BRAKE ACTIVATION WITHOUT ME PRESSING ON THE BRAKES OR TAKING ANY OTHER ACTION. THE VEHICLE'S SUDDEN, UNEXPECTED AND SUSTAINED BRAKING ACTION RESULTED IN A NEAR-COLLISION WITH A SEMI-TRUCK TRAVELING BEHIND ME WHICH THE TRUCK-DRIVER WAS FORTUNATELY JUST ABLE TO PREVENT. I STEERED THE VEHICLE TO THE FREEWAY SHOULDER AS THE UN-COMMANDED BRAKING ACTION BROUGHT THE VEHICLE TO A STOP. THE INCIDENT WAS EXTREMELY FRIGHTENING FOR ME, AND IT WAS ONLY SHEER LUCK THAT I WAS NOT SERIOUSLY INJURED OR KILLED. AFTER I HAD THE VEHICLE TOWED TO MERCEDES BENZ OF LAGUNA NIGUEL, THEIR SERVICE DEPARTMENT DETERMINED THAT THE ELECTRONIC STABILITY PROGRAM (?ESP?) CONTROL MODULE AND YAW RATE SENSOR HAD FAILED AND NEED TO BE REPLACED. THE VEHICLE IS PRESENTLY IN AN INOPERABLE CONDITION. REVIEWING THE NHTSA WEBSITE, THIS APPEARS TO BE RELATED TO NHTSA (CAMPAIGN # PE07007).

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 929081
ODI Number 10466598
Date Filed July 19, 2012
Failure Date May 14, 2012
VIN 4JGAB54E81A

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