About last week as usual I was driving home from work at 5 pm in Indonesia, however today was different than any other day there was a huge traffic jam in the highway.

Just yesterday my friend told me that his brand spanking new C300 sport (less than 5000kms or 3100miles) burnt to ashes in the highway. That's what had caused the big traffic jam about a week ago. So this is how he told me: he was driving normally on his way home on the highway, not speeding or driving erratically, about 15 minutes into the journey there was cars honking, giving hand signals, and cars moving away as far as possible. A driver rolled his window saying that his car was on fire, he thought it was a joke. So, he pulled over anyway. As he saw it was a small fire on the rear left wheel he tried to put it out with a bottle of water, which didn't work. So he called the Mercedes dealer who came about 15 minutes later and which was too late, his car burnt completely what was left was only the shell of the car. Luckily he was by him self, and not with his wife and kids. No one was hurt. He was insured and complained to Mercedes in German and local dealer where he bought the car.


So what I'm wondering is, the car that he got a lemon? was it a bad design? human error? bad build?
Some Mercedes models such as the C&E 200 250 300 and S300 is locally build in Indonesia's Mercedes plant. Is this the cause or something else?

 

indonesia assembly plant probably
but I find a bit surprised if C300 was build in indonesia, over here in malaysia our local plant only produce up to C230 which is 2.5litre, anything above are fully imports. And right now they are doing the new CGI thing which are all turbo charged 1.8 Litres and C250 max, no more V6s, but thats just malaysia
Interest me where the fire was coming from, because the petrol tank is on the right side, and there is no engine components at the rear to produce and maintain all that fire. maybe it is the petrol tank, or human setup, who knows

 

Mercedes-Benz has sold over a half-million cars this year. You report that a single one caught fire. Unless you can state why the car caught on fire, I’m unclear how anything can be assuredly said.

 

Is this the one? same story, but it happened about a month ago.
https://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w...otal-loss.html
http://us.surabaya.detik.com/read/20...an-kobaran-api

Anyhow, lucky he got the insurance and walked out fine.

Mb Indonesia does not have their own assembly plant, the using subcontractor plan (the name is Gaya something). But once it rolls out the plant, it means all spec has been according to MB. All parts are imported directly from Germany, including its made in france Michelins. All metal parts came painted.

Even this incident may be considered one of a kind, there always room for improvement in design.

 

It's a pity it burned completely - no one is likely to find the cause. CKD cars are prone to assembly problems.

All you need is one fuel leak & an ignition source for any car to burn. Same goes for a rare battery failure.

 

I would have called the fire department before I called the Mercedes dealer.

 

I bet it would take longer for the fire department to arrive... And i believe in indonesia they do make C300 as CKD in their assembly plant, only they call it C280.

 

Maybe, but at least they're equipped to put out the fire. What is the dealer going to do about a fire?

 

yep thats the car. and i forgot to mention that he called the fire department also but they came 15 minutes after the dealer arrived. So the fire dept arrived about 30 minutes into the .

That car always had problems when he owned it, faulty horn, electric seats, etc.

 

If it really was from the wheel, the only possibility is a dragging brake, either the service brake or the parking brake was not released.

The fuel tanks (two) are located ahead of the rear axle on each side of the driveshaft well inboard of the wheels.

You would think that someone with a fire extinguisher would stop.

 

If that was the case, then I would driven it as far away from a firehouse as I could and set it aflame as well.

 

Looks to me he avoided a bullet. The car sounds like it was a lemon with that many issues, every manufacturer will have some lemons.

What's next? Is he going to buy another one or a different car?

 

He loves his Mercedes and he said that he's going to buy another Mercedes that is not locally build in Indonesia lol. He's leaning towards an imported W212 E300. Probably his C300 wasn't his 'meant to be'