Total Complaints
1 filings
MERCEDES-BENZ 170 · model year
1 NHTSA complaints for this specific cohort.
NHTSA overall rating
Not crash-tested
New Car Assessment Program
The 2003MERCEDES-BENZ170 carries 1 consumer safety complaint in NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation database for this specific model-year cohort. Within that volume, owners reported 0 crashes, 0 fires, 0 injuries, and 0 fatalities. No NCAP 5-star crash-test rating is available for this model year in the federal database.
Component-level analysis is where model-year complaints become actionable: the top complaint category for the 2003 170 is visibility with 1 filings. Concentration in one or two component groups is the classic signature of a systemic defect; a flat distribution usually reflects normal aging, warranty complaints, or isolated build-plant variability.
NHTSA currently has 15 investigation files overlapping the 2003 170. Owners comparing this cohort against neighboring years should pair the counters above with the complaint-by-year trend on the parent model page — a spike in a single year often tracks to a platform refresh, a new transmission supplier, or an updated ECU calibration. Use the related-complaint feed below to read raw owner narratives before deciding whether any pattern here affects your specific use case.
Total Complaints
1 filings
Crashes Reported
0 reports
Source
NHTSA ODI
Federal complaints database
At or below the fleet median complaint volume.
| Component | Count |
|---|---|
| VISIBILITY | 1 |
I HAVE A AUTO DIMMING REARVIEW MIRROR ON MY 2003 SLK 230 THAT HAS BECOME BLURRY TO LOOK INTO DUE TO A LEAKAGE OF A CHEMICAL AGENT INSIDE THE MIRROR. THE TECHNOLOGY IN THE MIRRORS SEEM TO BE DEFECTIVE AS THERE ARE MANY DOCUMENTED CASES ON THIS PROBLEM ONLINE BY OTHER MERCEDES OWNERS. *TR
Mileage: 49,000
Data as of 2025. Sources: NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) complaints database, NHTSA recall campaign API, NHTSA NCAP crash-test ratings, and NHTSA FARS for fatality cross-reference.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.