Hi,
I am thinking of getting a 2014 E400 hybrid, but am worried about the lifetime of the hybrid battery.
I imagine that after 3 years max, the battery will die and need a replacement, which seems to be extremely costly.

Is it possible to drive the car in ordinary gas mode, without a functioning hybrid battery?

Thanks,

 

If you want a hybrid get a Prius or those similar economy type car.
The W212 itself is already a complex-electronic-infested car, don't add more headache choosing a hybrid.
I seen its wiring schematic ( sort of ), it is more complex.

You don't choose 3.5L egine for fuel economy ...right ?

 

No reason to think the battery will die in 3 years unless it has a million miles.

The only reason to avoid E400 hybrid is that it is a low production number car which means support for it will be limited.

 

There are tens if not hundreds hybrid concepts, so do your research before you will jump on one.
I did not study E400, but what I noticed that Mercedes makes very sketchy hybrids.
Meaning the electric motor is fraction of HP the main motor is and can't be use for city driving at all, while the potential boost is minimal.
In other words, I think MB folded to US propaganda that hybrids are to save the World, while not really trying to put some sense to it.
You want to save environment, buy 60 mpg E250 Bluetec.
Or put down-payment on Lucid.

 

That’s the last Mercedes I would ever look at buying. Good luck

 

Don't do it.

 

As far as I'm concerned about the battery life those should last approximately 8 years but I wouldn't buy a hybrid car either nor a fully electric vehicle

 

Driving diesels, I always got better economy than hybrids, or electric, but technology with electric goes on faster lane, than diesel technology.
So when my 60 mpg Bluetec is exiting, the 1000 HP Lucid making 500 miles on single charge and recharging for another 300 miles in 20 minutes, sure sounds exiting.
But it comes with sticker shock.

 

Unlike the S Class hybrid, the E400 can indeed be run on electric power only for a factory claimed 1/2 mile and speeds up to 20mph. Not overly impressive, but a step in the right direction.
Battery life is usually 6 to 10 years, being more time sensitive than mileage. The battery, while not overly complex, is a very high voltage Lithium Ion thus a DIY replacement can be very risky. The battery actually has an air conditioning line in and out for cooling high voltage capacitors that need to be discharged before handling. At a dealer, expect to pay around $12,500 (!!!) for a new battery installed. There are four or five other very expensive points of failure on the hybrid system. The electrical motor is mounted in-between the ICE engine and the transmission, therefore the car has no starter. The electric motor starts the car. This means if there's any failure in any of the critical areas you are dead in the water. The car can not run on engine only and the hybrid battery cannot be jumped (at least not in the field). Many have claimed that if the electric hybrid system fails, they'll just bypass it and run as a regular gas E350. This is false! The car can not be operated at all without a functioning hybrid system. You'll need a flatbed tow, likely to a dealer as there's few Indy's well versed in Mercedes Hybrids because of the low numbers sold. Even in the dealerships finding a tech who knows this close to 10 year old technology system is going to be slim. Hybrid repair parts are very expensive and hard to find.
Most who have a dead hybrid system in an otherwise very nice car choose to use used parts just to get the car running long enough to sell. Even used batteries runs from $3k to $4k that carry no guarantee. With companies like CarMax, Carvana and other on-line sites buying up any used car in this crazy market, it wouldn't surprise me to see people offloading a patched together Mercedes hybrid. Beware, because there are some very nice low miles high option Mercedes hybrids around for a very attractive price.

 

Those things are "bleeding edge technology", but they only seem to bleed your wallet. Also, seen as marketing stop gaps for trends to fade, i.e. poor support when complex problems arise.

Since you are planning to go for a gas mode only in the future (if the battery fails which it will), you may as well get a gasoline one and buy all Hybrid stickers.

 

As you can see in my signature line I've owned another hybrid car (lexus) for a long time - now pushing 120k miles. Nothing broke in the powertrain. Zero issues. it's so boring that a typical conversation at the dealer service dept deals with water mark the car wash guy left on the paint or whether needing a wheel alignment or not. There has been a couple of suspension issues but not related to the powertrain.

Having an electric motor for some of the operations of the car means you have LESS problems, not more. (in general). I don't know too much about the E400 hybrid but the 2021 E450, another hybrid sedan, has no accessory belt. No alternator (electric motor acts as starter/alternator), no belt driven AC, no belt driven water pump, no belt driven power steering hydraulic pump (although this was being disconnected with other non hybrid cars to be fair). Additionally, my current hybrid car has 60% of its original brake pads left because the traction motor operation uses the braking energy to recharge the batteries - so not much is needed to actually use the brake pads except for the braking action that is beyond 0.2 to 0.3 g's. when the car goes into stop/start operation, the operation is way smoother as the torque from the electric motor at 0 rpm is already at 180 ft/lbs and there is no turbo lag as the electric torque fills the gap until the turbo spools up. The power deliver is perfectly linear which is a tough statement to make for any turbo charged MB cars. lastly, you can idle your car for quite a while when waiting to pick up your loved ones at the airport with 100 degree whether without running the engine (AC runs on its own power). Lastly, the electric torque smooths out some of the herky jerky motions of the modern transmissions at low gear/low rpm situation. As you know the 7G transmission in our cars, while great, does have some shuddering going on under 10 mpg. Essentially, it acts like a torque converter without having one.

Toyota people use Nickel Hybrid but MB uses lithium. With the Toyota I am expected to get a slight degradation in battery performance at around 150k miles I suspect that will be the with the MB cars around 120k miles or so. Until then, there isn't much else to do. (I do need to replace my inverter cooler fluid at 150K miles)

 

YMMV always applies.
Our female friend drove hybrid Lexus SUV.
A year ago (maybe 2) at about 7 years of age the batteries died. The quote for new was $9000, but she found a deal for $6000.
This year she traded it for new Lexus SUV and got $6000 for the old one.
New one is NOT a hybrid.

 

well.......that's unfortunate for your friend. But the facts need to be pointed out. Because these boomer aged state law makers are scared they made hybrid car companies to bolster warranties on these things. federally, they have an 8-year/100,000-mile warranty in most states. In states that adopt California's emissions regulations, that rises to 10-years/150,000-miles. Let's just say my mechanic tells me there are plenty of MB internal combustion engine (ICE) failures out there..... and there is no warranty on the ICE after 50K miles.

In truth, I think there is more of fear of the unknown than real comparisons out there. Hybrids, especially mild hybrids with 48 volt architecture, helps your maintenance costs and increase performance and comfort of driving. As for your friend, I don't know why her batteries were not covered by warranty, which is completely transferrable regardless of the owner.

 

From what are you saying the longer battery warranties apply to newer cars, when 2012 model likely had it shorter.
Being technology enthusiast, I read about hybrids a lot.
The only concept that made sense to me was used in Porsche, where plug-in hybrid would allow you to run 30 miles around the city without firing up combustion engine. This way you don't have to worry about oil and filter changes.
Than when you took off for longer vacation, you would fire the gas-guzzler.

 

In the USA the Mercedes hybrid battery in the 212 E400 is warranted for 62k miles. If it fails at 65k miles it will cost $12k to replace. I'd please like to see the states that force MBUSA extend this to 8 years/ 100k miles (10 year/ 150k miles in CA). A link please? Is MBUSA aware of this? Are there actual examples of MBUSA warranting the hybrid system for 100k miles?

 

here you go. Emission control includes hybrid batteries.

 

going back to the OP's question though..... My preference is to get at least 60K to 75K miles out of the ownership before worrying the battery. My Lexus hybrid batteries are still good, but I notice just a tiny bit of degradation in battery performance. My MPG is about 5% below vs when I first got it. All this to say that, getting a lower mileage car would be a better deal. The warranty is there but better not to deal with it in the first place.

 

The 10 year/150k is for the plug in hybrid, much different technology. It does not cover the hybrid E400, which as stated is 6 year/ 62k miles. If you could find a link that the E400 hybrid is covered, myself and many others would be ecstatic.

 

Informative post. Thanks

 

I stand corrected on this. Apparently it's Toyota that gives out the long battery warranty. But that doesn't seem to be the case with other companies. In CA, as it turns out, the car has to be PZEV, the list of which oddly includes some non-hybrid cars like Subaru and Buick and stuff. But E400, somehow, does not qualify. You can see the warranty statement below that pertains to "energy storage device."

 

for example, 2011-2017 Lexus CT 200h were not plug in hybrids but were PZEVs. In a class action lawsuit, it alleged that Toyota has wrongfully limited the duration of coverage of the hybrid battery by failing to cover the hybrid battery for 10 years or 150,000 miles. The plaintiffs won that case and Toyota now provides battery warranty for both plug-in's and non plug-in's to 10 yrs or 150k miles.

 

The battery will last much longer than three years.

 

And let's not confuse Toyota and Mercedes. Toyota has been making hybrids much longer than Mercedes and sells a lot more. You'll be able to find either aftermarket parts or used parts much easier on a Toyota than a Mercedes. They sold a lot more Toyotas/Lexus than Mercedes hybrids. We hardly ever have any Mercedes hybrid owners on this forum. Any problems you have, you'll probably hear crickets aside from just one or two people on here. Plus while you might get online advice, good luck trying to find a local mechanic who has any experience with them. The regular E350 are all over the place, lots of threads on them and the problems are well known. I'd also lump in diesels in the same category but not as bad, more people on this forum has diesels than hybrids, but you'd still have the same problem finding a knowledgeable mechanic. They just didn't sell than many diesels and even less hybrids.

 

To add to diesel comment, there is about 10 diesel Sprinters for each diesel MB sedan sold in USA, so even it might not be easy option, taking your diesel sedan to Sprinter indy might work.
There are no Sprinter hybrids.