Hi All,

I am in the midst of an unbelievable situation trying to deal with a lemon law buyback with MBUSA and wanted to share my story here as a "buyer beware" for people considering a new mercedes.

TLDR: run away from MB and buy something else.

In spring of 2024, I leased a brand new $125K EQE AMG SUV. Awesome car, loved it. Lots of software glitches but whatever, cars are computers now so you deal with it.

Over the summer two things started happening that were more serious:

1. the automatic door handles would open and then would randomly snap back closed with fingers inside. It felt like it could sense resistance and sometimes would re-open, but not always.
2. the emergency braking would randomly activate, slamming on the brakes full-force (sometimes til the car stopped, sometimes just for a second. Terrifying on the highway.

I've had other MB's with the brake issue. MB sent field techs out to investigate one car and the answer is always the same, "operating as designed". This is one of those things...if it only happens 1% of the time, it's basically impossible to capture or to replicate.

My dealer's suggestion was to open a CAC case, so in mid-July I called them to do that, told them the whole story. They said I would hear back from someone.

August rolls around and no response, so I assume MBUSA is just stonewalling us on the issue, same as last time.

My wife refuses to drive the AMG with defects, so we trade it in on a 2024 E450 all terrain - at a $25K loss. In retrospect we should have pursued a buyback on that car, but with MBUSA non-responsive, and with a dangerous defect, we just bit the bullet and took the hit.

Fast forward and two months into owning the 2024 E450, it's being repurchased due to multiple issues. MBUSA immediately approves the repurchase, which is great - but Sedgwick says we are responsible for the negative equity from the EQE, so we cannot execute the buyback unless we come up with this giant pile of cash.

The Executive Referral Managers seem to understand that the "negative equity" is also from them, but their "hands are tied" and because the CAC agent apparently never opened a case when I called previously, they can't connect the dots.

So now we are stuck. We have a defective, dangerous-to-drive vehicle. MBUSA has admitted the same and agreed to take it back. But unless we can come up with this big pile of cash for the negative equity - which was caused by their *other* defective vehicle - we have to keep driving it. We are literally stuck with no options, because of their defective products.

It's really disgusting, and like so many of you, I've been a mercedes customer for decades, but this is the last straw and we are done. I can understand the product problems but this kind of treatment of a customer is so disappointing.

 

I am not sure but I think it is a YMMV type of thing, sorry to hear both vehicles gave you issues.

 

A very sad story, indeed. At this point, I would start throwing piles of cash at a lawyer. It may well be the least-expensive way out of this.

 

Sorry for your difficulties. What I do not understand is that you traded your 2024 AMG EQE SUV for a $25000 capital loss to an MB dealer. Who was responsible for making the leasing company whole? In every lease that I've had with MBFS, there is a residual and the amount of money left on the lease payments is the total remaining. The $25000 difference would be what you owed on the contract unless you had relief from MB for that amount for the buy-off? If they agreed to repurchase the vehicle, how could that amount not be part of the repurchase?

 

I would also see that a a negative equity that people FAR TOO OFTEN roll into the total price of a new(er) vehicle. This is simply banking 101 - and common freaking sense (something folks are also lacking).

While I empathize with the OP - he signed the papers. The two are not related. The debt was simply financed on the credit of the buyer - not the EQUITY of the new car.

This is yet another example of why it is, in general not a great idea to use MFG financing for any vehicle, or, if you do (at purchase) ReFi it to a local bank (who will only finance the equity stake in a capital purchase)

 

It sounds like you agreed to take responsibility for the $25k when you did the trade in. If you didn’t want to take that responsibility then you should have lemon’d the first car.

Because you took on that $25k negative equity you have this situation.

You can’t expect them to buy back the lemon E450 for more than the selling price of that vehicle. Not in the current market.

So you eating the negative equity is unavoidable. You should never have done the negative equity trade in the first place. I would have just left the EQE with the dealer to fix, multiple times if necessary, and once it hit the number of repair days to trigger the lemon visit, I would have lemon’d it. You always get a loaner while it is in there.

That said I would recommend you buy something more reliable. Lexus and Porsche are two brands I might recommend to you.

 

I so deeply relate to your issues. i leased a 2023 EQB300 which is a totally unsafe vehicle to drive with multiple sensor and battery failures. Despite engaging a lemon-law lawyer, we were unsuccessful at a buyback. My dealer was unhelpful. Another dealer told me that my dealer should have advocated for me, but don't know whether that was to try to get my business. At any rate, I am stuck with the EQB300 with maybe $15K negative equity. And just my luck-- the neighbor two doors down had an expensive vehicle stolen from his driveway literally at 6AM one cloudy day two weeks ago. The thieves who were in a stolen SUV and checking out other vehicles on the block bypassed my EQB. But literally this is the worst vehicle I've ever owned after many years of MB ownership.

In your case unfortunately the $25K negative equity rolled into the 450e lease cannot be recovered.

 

Sorry to hear that : ( what was MBUSA's basis for denying the buyback?

 

Sorry to hear about your experience. I'd say it's quite a-typical, as you know from past ownership experience. Seems clear you have a one-off with some sort of difficult-to-diagnose issue. I've had several MB vehicles going back to 2013, and in the family since the 1980s, and they've all been reliable with relatively few issues. Our EQs are no different in our case. I've also driven EQBs, we have a neighbor with one, and I've never found a source of complaint with the cars. It's likely that the issue with your car is difficult to diagnose - some component that is causing multiple-system faults or failures. One faulty RADAR unit, a misaligned camera, or possibly an issue with a wiring harness somewhere in the car that yields very spurious faults. Every manufacturer will suffer a couple of those kinds of cars. It's very rare to get two in a row with issues as well. I hope your dealer will stick it through to find the faults. Don't let up, and they may yet locate the issue. I had one issue with my EQE sedan that popped up - the only problem I've had ever with the car, which cleared with restarting. They disconnected and reconnected every single module in the car to track it down. And the problem never came back, so it may come down to a wiring harness - impossible to replicate, but it's there. It took them almost 2 months at the dealership to get there, but it was resolved. Wishing you good luck in resolving it.

 

Nobody wants to steal them! Then insurance companies should be charging less for EVs. Just saying... make black soot spewing diesel drivers pay more.

 

The attorney did not specify why MB rejected the claim-- just that they rejected and he didn't want to go to court. Two different dealers are both doing the same thing and problems go away and then recur.

And at $15K or so under water, I'll just suffer with it until the neighborhood car thieves return.