E-Class Mercedes E-Class Investigated for Faulty Air Bags

[bmer]

May 18, 2010, 1:01 PM EDT
By Angela Greiling Keane


May 18 (Bloomberg) -- Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz E-Class cars are under investigation by U.S. regulators because air bags in the vehicles may not always deploy properly in crashes, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said.

About 100,000 cars from the 2005 and 2006 model years may be affected, NHTSA said on its website today. The auto safety agency said it received four complaints about failures in the module-wiring harness of the steering column, which can result in air bags failing to inflate in frontal crashes. No injury has been reported.

The issue arises when steering wheels are raised into a high position by the driver, said Robert Moran, a spokesman at the U.S. unit of Mercedes in Montvale, New Jersey.

“If a customer puts that steering wheel at a very raised position, if your steering wheel is telescoped all the way up, the wiring harness may be a little too short,” Moran said in a telephone interview. “It is the kind of thing if your light went on and you went to the dealer, they would be able to rectify that.”

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-18/mercedes-e-class-investigated-for-faulty-air-bags-update2-.html

 

[Kowalski]

Oh well, at least they are doing something to rectify the problem.

 

[Wolfgang]

It's covered in a MBUSA Technical Service Bulletin issued in 2005:

ODI has received four complaints of steering column module wiring harness failures on MY 2005-2006 Mercedes-
Benz E-Class vehicles. In December 2005, Mercedes-Benz USA issued a technical service bulletin (TSB No. PB-
91.60/99) and subsequently issued several minor revisions to the original TSB. The TSBs address reports of air
bag warning lamp illumination accompanied by a diagnostic fault code 9103 or 9123 indicating a high resistance in the
driver's frontal air bag ignition squib 1 or 2 (the air bag firing circuits), respectively. This condition may result in failure
of the driver's first stage and/or second stage inflator to deploy in the event of an above deployment threshold frontal
crash. According to the TSBs, the repair involves significant lengthening of the steering column module wiring
harness by cutting and splicing each wire in the harness. Thus, it appears possible that the wire ends in the original,
shorter harness could pull out of the connector block thereby causing an open-circuit condition in the driver's air bag
circuits. Additionally, the TSBs cover MY 2003-2009 E-Class and MY 2006-2010 CLS-Class vehicles. Although ODI
has not received complaints involving all of these vehicles, ODI will inquire about all vehicles covered by the above​

TSBs.

From: Home | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

 

[Merc1]

Uh oh...see this is the problem with a lousily built car from years back, it comes back to haunt you.

Pre-facelift W211 I woudln't touch with no matter what the price. Local dealer has a 2003 E500 with only 32K on the clock for 19K. Nice price but first year W211 are a disaster waiting to happen.


M

 

[Nicks]

Pre-facelift W211 I woudln't touch with no matter what the price

almost 100k km on pre-facelift 211, and i 've had only one malfunction

 

[Merc1]

You're lucky. Most of the car in the U.S. were pretty troublesome especially 2003-2005 model years.


M

 

[Nicks]

2002-yearly 2003 were not as good as supposed

 

[Gullwing]

It's covered in a MBUSA Technical Service Bulletin issued in 2005:

Not just the E class, but the R, ML, (GL, C, CLK???)
It was a lot of cars. The connections of the wires between the steering wheel and steering column were not tight enough so we cut the wires and installed new updated wires/connectors. Kind of a pain but after a few your could do it pretty fast and make time on it.

 

[cawimmer430]

Pre-facelift W211 I woudln't touch with no matter what the price. Local dealer has a 2003 E500 with only 32K on the clock for 19K. Nice price but first year W211 are a disaster waiting to happen.

M

Zero problems, absolutely zero, on our 2002 W211 E320 - one of the first cars produced and delivered in Germany to. It's been 100% reliable and has 125,000 km+ on it now. In our circle of friends we know quite a few early W211 owners and none of them have had any major issues.

 

[Merc1]

Zero problems, absolutely zero, on our 2002 W211 E320 - one of the first cars produced and delivered in Germany to. It's been 100% reliable and has 125,000 km+ on it now. In our circle of friends we know quite a few early W211 owners and none of them have had any major issues.

Different story here Chris. The early cars were some of the most unreliable cars Mercedes made during that time.


M

 

[cawimmer430]

Different story here Chris. The early cars were some of the most unreliable cars Mercedes made during that time.


M

I can't relate to it from a personal experience.

 

[Mr. Mercedes]

Different story here Chris. The early cars were some of the most unreliable cars Mercedes made during that time.


M

Our W211 was a pain. Beautiful, but with one issue after another.

 

[Monster]

Our 05 model is still going fine, no complains at all.

 

[Potential]

My W211 was faultless from day one to day 365!