Total Complaints
1 filings
MERCEDES-BENZ M166 · model year
1 NHTSA complaints for this specific cohort.
NHTSA overall rating
Not crash-tested
New Car Assessment Program
The 2012MERCEDES-BENZM166 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 2012 M166 is power train 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 2012 M166. 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 |
|---|---|
| POWER TRAIN | 1 |
THIS MODEL HASN!T A TRANSMISSION FLUID MEASUREMENT STICK, BUT EITHER NOT INDICATE AT MONITORING SCREEN IF NEEDS FLUID, ALSO THE TRANSMISSION FLUID PAN BECOME RUSTED DUE TO LOW MATERIAL QUALITY LEAKING ALL FLUID AND CAUSING SERIOUS AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION DAMAGES, COSTING OVER US$6000.00 IN REPAIR. I WANT THAT YOU AGENCY OPEN A INVESTIGATION. I HAVE THE OLD PAN TO BE EXANMINATED FOR FAULTY MATERIAL AT ALL VEHICLE OF THAT YEAR AND MODEL.
Mileage: 129,105
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.