El Cid

Takata has apparently declared bankruptcy (no surprise), but has promised that defective airbags will be replaced eventually. Between 26 and 42 million to be replaced, depending on source.
Mercedes-Benz (The Best or Nothing) has lowest percentage of completed replacements so far. 1.8%!!!!! per Consumer Reports.
BMW, Suburu, Mazda and Toyota owners will receive money and a loaner until cars are repaired based on a settled lawsuit.
Meanwhile, M-B does nothing? Time for the "doctors" in Germany to step up and fix this. Quit worrying about winning races, producing $150,000+ AMG's that go faster than ever before, etc. and take care of the people who own your cars. The people who trusted the M-B name.

ItalianJoe1

MB has also not had any issues with failing airbags. There isn't a huge concern to fix something that isn't an issue. They are being replaced because Takata has determined there are issues with some of the applications and some of the inflators, so all of the units that use them were open to recall.

jahquan3

I don't think it's worth risking even one life even though nothing has happen to an MB. There's no guarantee that it won't happen. It's been almost a year since this came to light and this long of a wait is disgusting and lazy execution wise from Mercedes.

Is there proof that no MB has had an event with these airbags even if not tragic?

raja777m

Here is where you veirfy, right?
https://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/recall

Knock on wood, my car is not in the recall list, as of now.

davidjohnbamber

The last visit to my dealer (M-B Medford) there were approx 18 Benz's sitting in the back of the lot. They all had warnings of do not drive/not for sale on the dash. I asked my service advisor about them, and was told that they are waiting for recall parts. Somebody is paying financial assistance to keep those vehicles there. I'm assuming its M-B.

thefisch

And those cars to be sold will get the part before you get yours.

My car was not on the list last time I checked, but I think they've been adding cars in waves so it doesn't hurt to check again.

Peachy

I don't think Mercedes is responsible for making us wait so long for the recall work to get done, it's the airbag manufacturer that's backordered like crazy.

ItalianJoe1

MB recalled all the cars, we just don't have the airbags to install. It's a supply issue, Benz doesn't build them.

jkaetz

While this is great thinking in theory, someone has to pay for it and in this case someone has to manufacture the parts. You can't replace what you don't have nor can you simply get all the replacements for free.

To my knowledge no MB car has had an instance where an air bag injured someone. They recalled the airbags simply because of the Takata name. They are also still at the mercy of a parts supplier.

belarus27

So who gonna make new ones if Takata is going down?
And dang time flies...
Funny thing is that , even my mom got it replaced by her dealer at least half a year ago on her 2007 honda crv. And mercedes still cant ...sadly

ItalianJoe1

Takata was bought out by another company, and will be responsible for continuing to produce them. The replacements will keep coming.

jahquan3

Well allow me to pay for it upfront and reimbursement later if need be. My safety and my family safety is my main concern. I can care less about Mercedes or Takata lack of preparation to fix this issue. It's been a year now, this isn't some 2 month issue.

ItalianJoe1

They are replacing airbags in cars that are 15 years old... they have had 15 years to build this many, how quickly are they supposed to produce all those replacement ones? I understand you want your car fixed right now and are unhappy, but be realistic. This is 80 MILLION airbags. For a company that is now bankrupt, and was producing 8-10 million units a year, to have to replace several complete years worth of production while still attempting to provide updated new units for new cars to stay in business, they are doing what they can.

At the end of the day, you're much safer in the Benz than in many of the other affected cars, and the airbag itself has never actually been an issue for benz, this is preventative replacement because of the inflator design.

Peachy

I've already come to terms with probably never getting my side airbag replaced :B

RNajarian

This also happened at the MB Dealership in Thousand Oaks CA, but to my advantage. I recently bought a 2012 C350 coupe with low miles (30,320). It was listed for sale as a CPO for $28,500 in Nov 2016. According to CARFAX the car was taken in on trade in Nov 2016, certified as a CPO but because of the Takata Airbag they were not allowed to sell it. The car sat until July 2017 when the Factory said it was OK to sell. Because they sat on the car for 8 months the dealer was VERY motivated to sell. I got the car for $21,800.

Of course both my E350 and C350 need the AirBags replaced which I am told may occur next year (2018).

BenzMan369

Here’s the latest Takata recall status information as posted by Consumer Reports.org.

As of this time, 704,420 MB vehicles require the recall. Of those, 12,750 repairs have been completed. This is a total MB repair rate of 1.8% thus far, the lowest repair rate of all affected manufacturers. The recall leader is Honda, with 58% of more than 10 million affected vehicles having been repaired to date. A portion of this information has already been mentioned courtesy of El Cid above. Thought it was worth repeating with expanded info.

I do not know what total sales numbers are for impacted MB model years. Perhaps 704,420 represents only a small percentage of total MB vehicles sold in the affected model years. Nevertheless, MB is the slowest at correcting the issue in those vehicles in which potentially dangerous Takata airbags have been installed.

BMW, Toyota, Subaru and Mazda have reached a preliminary settlement in a class action lawsuit, in which they agree to set aside a substantial sum of money to fund consumer notification, increase replacement rates, compensate consumers for inconvenience and to make rental cars available. A final approval hearing is set for October.

Mercedes Benz was among those manufacturers who refused to comment to CR on the matter. MB was not cited as being involved in any class action lawsuits re the matter at this time.

Takata’s operations have been bought out by another company, EXCEPT for the airbag operation. This was “not expected” to impact Takata’s ability to provide replacement airbags.

If you live in the U.S.A., the further south you live the faster your recall repair will be completed. This is due to the manner in which environmental factors such as heat and humidity impact the airbags’ reliability.

For those of you who subscribe to CR.org, suggest you read the entire article. It has other interesting related information.

jahquan3

Great find and thanks for sharing.

thefisch

Does MB think this is golf where the lowest score wins?

The Best or Nothing!

BenzMan369

Perhaps they do. On the surface at least they seem to lack any sense of urgency as though burying their heads in the sand - trap.

konigstiger

Some docs...

El Cid

Thanks for the information. Apparently MB is only doing the vehicles in dealer inventories?

thefisch

Why of course since those replacements are keeping them from making money since they can't sell those cars yet? Whereas they don't profit replacing existing customers recalled airbags.

ItalianJoe1

I've replaced lots of them in customer cars.

sadpanda

I just bought one of the affected vehicles (2011 E350) from my local dealer. Had to sign a waiver in the process, since the airbag hasn't yet been replaced. The dealer will call me when the free replacement is finally available.

The deal was just too good to pass up. I got over 20% off vs. book values, and the dealer had sunk several grand into replacing wearables like the motor mounts when they prepped it for sale after sitting on a side lot for a year. MBUSA appears to be throwing quite a bit of money at the dealers to get these cars refurbed and off the lots. A lot of the stop sale vehicles were actually bought by my dealer's employees, because they subsidies are so large. At least for MB, this seems like a rare opportunity.

mbzusr

I am so with you on this point! I'm searching the forums now for replacement steering wheels to buy on my own. Through observation, I think that at issue were the old designs that allowed for lots of custom bag and cover shapes in the steering wheel. Look at ANY new car being sold today, and they all have a small circular, or at best, small oval or small parallelogram shaped horn/bag area that do not extend along with the steering spokes like I have on my 2011 GLK 350.