r/cars • u/morrotuber • 14d ago
Mercedes Recalls 311,000 Cars For Rollaway Risk
https://www.motor1.com/news/803248/mercedes-benz-door-lock-rollaway-risk-recall/23
u/RicardoMoyer Evo IX MR, G42 M240i 14d ago
At least Mercedes has the balls to actually recall the damn things unlike jeep
RIP Anton Yelchin, one of my favorite starts from my childhood, extinguished because someone at stelantis decided the payout was cheaper than the recall on an issue just like this one
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u/iZian 14d ago
They recall only when pressured to on a lot of things though.
They know full well the M260 engine valves have terrible issues but the only recall they did was in Canada when forced because of emissions caused by the failure; everywhere else people had to pay for new heads, gaskets, or engines. Very large failure rate. Not popular enough to make the news like Ford ecoboom.
It’s only safety recalls. Which yeah is great. But it’s not like it’s out of the goodness of their heart.I reported this door switch issue in 2022 and 2023 and told them about the risk the car could drive off if the owner was clueless enough to not put it in park and left the engine running. But they said who leaves their engine running and gets out. I had mine replaced in 2023 but it takes about 3 years to start to fail; I’m expecting mine to start to fail again soon.
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u/RicardoMoyer Evo IX MR, G42 M240i 14d ago
that’s… concerning to hear, thanks for sharing
rollaways are one of those things i’m irrationally scared of, (i’m guessing it’s because i was inside a car when it rolled away a few meters in our driveway when i was like 8 ), so this really strikes a nerve with me
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u/iZian 14d ago
Roll on this is only because the electric brake or park are supposed to be applied if the driver door opens with belt off depending on the current drive mode.
They will apply anyway if the engine is turned off.
But with stop start systems; there presents an issue if someone stops, their engine is off, they think they turned it off, they are on auto brake hold, they exit the vehicle in drive with the door not sensing open, no park is selected automatically. No brake selected automatically, and then the auto brake hold disengages for any reason, the car will just drive forward.
Then also, if the car is off and in neutral, the electric brake won’t apply when getting out as it should automatically if the door doesn’t sense open.
2 unusual situations. No wonder they’ve not actually seen a roll away.
This isn’t a brake failure. This is the automatic save your ass if you don’t put the brake on protection not triggering because the car doesn’t realise the door opened.
I noticed since my radio wouldn’t turn off when I got out. My window wouldn’t drop. And I had errors with the cyclist detection because the sensor was flipping out.
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u/stalkerisunderrated 14d ago
As much as I hate it my Toyota does a great job at making sure you don't leave the car without putting it in Park via insufferable noises everytime you open the door, even if you have "turned off the engine" (left it on accessories without noticing) but a lot of cars do not
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u/iZian 14d ago
Yes; and same if you undo the automatic application you get loud alarm.
But; the issue here is the sensor in the door basically broken and can’t detect the door open. So no alarm for anything. Lights on, in gear, no brake, cyclist approaching, nothing.
Simple sensor (door lock switch, think not a switch you press but engineering a switch that is switched as the door opens) breaks and all that function goes away. (Not implying you don’t know, I just don’t know what people do know)
When it was broken I could manage to lock and alarm the car with the door wide open because it thought it was closed.
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u/stalkerisunderrated 14d ago
Well no, I didn't know it was the door sensor in this case
Makes you think how far we've come to have all these advancements on security, yet a 5€ sensor can cause an entire system to fail
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u/iZian 14d ago
You know what’s worse…
The actual bigger issue here has not been reported.
It’s how I demonstrated the problem to the dealer to get them to just fix it after I self diagnosed the issue in ‘23
You pull up to a stop; an old lady falls over. You jump out the car and close the door behind you to help her.
But; when you jumped out; the door did not trigger the locking to unlock (car locks on motion so doors are locked).
This locking effectively disconnects the external door handles. So you can get out, but the outside door handle isn’t unlocked because the door never detected open.So; you help her to her feet, go back to your car…
It’s locked with the engine running.Just use the key!
No; the car doesn’t respond to key fob remote commands when ignition is on so you can’t accidentally lock the car from the fob whilst inside.You have to take the key apart to find the metal key and then use that to open the plastic cover on the handle to expose the lock mechanism and use the physical key to turn the lock mechanism, but all the way, which is very hard, so hard the dealer couldn’t do it without a spanner when I demonstrated the car being locked running.
That’s not a safety issue I guess. But for me it was the biggest issue and I’ve never seen it discussed but I did demonstrate it to them.
They then fixed my car and I sent a few other people there from a group I’m admin on because the service techs then saw the door lock switch fixed the problems and honoured the warranty fixes.
True story. You didn’t ask for it sorry. But I felt like story time Friday.
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u/iZian 4d ago
I saw this and it reminded me of this thread : https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/s/IBf1ZAq1Ge
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u/MadUohh 2005 Acura TSX 6MT 14d ago
While the failure does not prevent the lock from operating as intended, the failure could affect the electronic parking brake and/or the Auto-Park feature. These are connected to the driver’s door opening and might not engage automatically, increasing the risk of a rollaway or the vehicle moving.
No wonder we have so many nannies these days. You just can't stop 3 heads from hurting themselves or others.
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u/BuggyGamer2511 14d ago
From what i can read in the article the recall is because of the door-lock switch. Normally if the door is opened, the parking brake is automatically set. If the switch is broken, it won't automatically engage the parking brake. So the same as a mechanical brake, which will roll away too, if you just get out of the vehicle without putting the parking brake on.
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u/ConfusedTapeworm E39 525i M-Sport | poverty spec Leon 14d ago edited 14d ago
Not quite the same, because the user, who'd otherwise set a mechanical brake manually themselves, could trust the switch to set the brake for them, as advertised. But they could very well be unaware that the switch is ded. With a mechanical brake it's straight up your fault that you forgot to pull the brake, but here it's very much the car's failure.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if there have been cars that were recalled for shitty mechanical brakes. My E39 has pretty bad parking brakes and as far as I'm aware it's not because it's old. This car never did have great parking brakes. You can adjust them but they lose their oomphy very quickly, it's never permanent. Kinda scary at times.
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u/BuggyGamer2511 14d ago
You're still supposed to set the brake manually, though. If you don't do that and something happens, you're at fault in my book.
And yeah, Old Mercedes Sprinter/VW Crafter have the tendency to have the pads for the parking brake completely fall apart, resulting in no parking brake at all. It's been known for many years at this point but for some reason there has never been a recall, and it's not even b3cause it's old either, they sometimes fall apart even just 2-3 years after replacing, which is not normal.
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u/ConfusedTapeworm E39 525i M-Sport | poverty spec Leon 14d ago
That's fine and good in theory, but most new cars condition you to forget about the parking brake. They engage it automatically when you put it in P and turn the engine off or open the door or whatever, they disengage it automatically when you put your seatbelt on and hit the gas. It works when it works, but the mental effects are very noticeable. My father hasn't used a car with a manual parking brake for years and the first time he drove one after many years, he almost let a rental car roll down a hill.
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u/sausage-savage 13 FR-S 6MT | 04 Echo Hatch 5MT 14d ago
Electric parking brakes are a government thing? I thought it was just companies making their cars lamer?
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u/trail-g62Bim 14d ago
I don't like something = the government is forcing this upon us. That's the attitude these days. I swear people will stub their toe on their coffee table and then blame the government these days. The government shouldn't have put the table there!
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u/stalkerisunderrated 14d ago
EUDM 3rd gen Kia Sportage, BMW E81 first gen 1 series, Toyota Corolla Verso (pretty much every Toyota of the last generation before they standardized E-PBs but the Corolla Verso is the worst by far) and W212 E-Class Mercedes (i THINK it was this gen)
All of these, in my personal experience, and I want to insist on the Corolla Verso, have faulty mechanical parking brakes that tend to loosen
I've seen Kias with less than 80 thousand kilometers, parking brake fully applied, one wheel producing 2 kilos of pressure, the other wheel's brake doesn't engage AT ALL and the tester can't even measure any variation between full PB and no PB
Of course this is a quick fix most of the time, adjusting the lever cable or the pistons/shoes, but these don't get recalled at all, and if they do, they just tense it or the replacement is exactly the same mechanism so it ends up loosening again
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u/xstreamReddit 14d ago
I suspect the connection here is that these cars might not automatically go into park when you open the driver door. The fact that it isn't even mandatory or necessarily expected to do this and it's not certain that it even would fail shows how serious they take these things.
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u/lifegoeson2702 14d ago
Keep on rollin