Hello,

A couple of hours ago I was returning to my winter house on a very dark (pitch black) road, and turned right just a bit too early at an intersection that I've mentally memorized for years. The kids had the iPad blaring in the back with some ridiculous thing playing, and I didn't have 100.00% focus as I always do. I turned right, to get onto a service road and regrettably I was 1/2 a meter too short on the turn, which resulted in the GL going off road, with a 3 meter drop below.

The car was teeter tottering on the Front Left wheel, and the Rear Right wheel.

We quickly evacuated all passengers (6 passengers including 2 x 2 yr olds) within 60 seconds

At that time, I stayed in the car with the brake firmly depressed until my wife evaluated the situation. She explained that we were FUBAR'd and there was no way out of this. I prayed, released the brake pedal, and got out of the car.

* Front left wheel on the road firmly
* Front right wheel in the air
* Rear left wheel 12" off the ground
* Rear right wheel fully compresed on the asphalt (the tire looks absolutely misreable) [Goodyear Eagle F1 SUV 275 55 19]

Decided we cannot try to fix this at 12 AM and left the car there until we can get a truck to lift it vertically with belts, out of it's predicament.

Lessons learned:

* no matter how well you know your roads, no matter how well you know your car, no matter how many millions of miles you've driven, the FUBAR moment can come to you
* front window tinting is very bad, if you really want to keep it, roll the windows down at night when turning in some zero-lighted area espc when death awaits
* child iPad blaring in the background at full brightness + tinted windows = you can't see as as well - very dangerous

I was unable to take photographs of this situation as it was pitch black, and I really wasn't in the mood to even think about this
Tomorrow, when my W221 arrives from HQ and we drive over to the X164 hanging over a ravine, I will photograph for all's entertainment

Insurance is going to bring a crane truck to "lift" the X164 vertically to get it out of the predicament it's in

I can already see the following:

* 100% replacement of RR tire
* 100% replacement of RR air spring, no way it will be the same after tonight

I really hope the running boards aren't destroyed during the lift, but if they are, we can add that in to the mix

Generally speaking, this /event/ was humbling. Yes, we are good, we know our cars, we know our roads, but that 1 time - that 1 time - something like this can happen.

Be safe out there guys.

BTW respect to the X164. Looking at it, and thinking about how it's sitting, (and how it got there) it's impressive as by all natural thought you'd imagine we should have fallen straight into that ravine.

Solid car.

 

Solid car?

solid luck.

im glad you and the family are safe.

 

Glad your safe....we need pics!

 

Glad you are all okay. And thanks for the humbling reminder. Many, many years ago, after a middle of the night ride from NY to MD, in the morning I discovered I still had the NJ Turnpike ticket in my car. I still shudder when I think what might have been.

 

Glad you came out of that awful situation all the best OP!

 

We got the car out today, no damage. Just underside scrapes.

Very lucky for all involved, and lucky for my wallet as well as quite amazingly nothing broke.

We pulled it with a RAV4 whilst turning the steering wheel totally to the right and reversing out of it. The central locking differential is what saved this situation, if this was a W221 RWD it would not have come out as easily.






How it happened:











How it looked:

 

Holy wow OP, super glad you got out of that wow.

 

So glad you and the family are safe! I'd recommend a reflective post/marker be added at that sharp corner, as a visual aid for making the corner in the dark. That corner drop-off looks super scary and unsafe! Also, later when you get a chance for a better inspection, we'd like to hear an update on any undercarriage damage to the GL.

 

I wonder what kind of reflective posts you can install in that dangerous corner for future safety....

 

I also wonder if the ETS would’ve pulled the GL clean off without any assistance. It is capable of doing that with one wheel in the air, but I’m not sure about two.

 

Hello,

>> So glad you and the family are safe! I'd recommend a reflective post/marker be added at that sharp corner, as a visual aid for making the corner in the dark. That corner drop-off looks super scary and unsafe! Also, later when you get a chance for a better inspection, we'd like to hear an update on any undercarriage damage to the GL.

In fact, the more I think about it, we are quite lucky to be safe on this one. If it had fallen in, yes nobody would have died etc as it wasn't such a big drop, but getting out of there would have been very difficult. Getting out would involve lifting the driver side doors straight up, and considering we had 6 (!!) passengers in the car (!!) 2 of which were 2 year olds in the 3rd row strapped into car seats, that would have been a hell of a night.

I'm sending the GL to Mercedes today and will photograph the undercarriage to see what type of damage we have. I drove the car home after this incident (200 KM distance) and it does not pull or vibrate at all, so nothing major broke, but still a post-incident inspection is mandatory after something like this. My main concern is that rear right tire which was holding so much weight for 12 hours.

>> I wonder what kind of reflective posts you can install in that dangerous corner for future safety....

A local guy who lives on that corner, was the guy with the RAV4 who pulled us out. He suggested that he installs reflective posts, however this isn't really up to the citizens to deal with, roadworks dept is responsible for sign installation, barriers, etc. Seeing as this is Greece, and the government is concerned only with taxing and subjugating it's citizens (forced digital ID's, forced carbon taxes etc) I'm not so sure they will deal with the posts.

As a result, we decided to install 8 x reflective posts and nail them into the concrete ourselves around that corner on our dime.

>> I also wonder if the ETS would’ve pulled the GL clean off without any assistance. It is capable of doing that with one wheel in the air, but I’m not sure about two.

In my opinion it could have come out of there by itself, although as it was teeter tottering a bit too much for my taste, I was just too afraid to try to do anything without the GL tied to something.

It may look easy, but if you leaned against it hard with medium force it would have toppled over into that drainage ditch instantly.

What a mess. I am glad we're OK, and very glad the children didn't have to experience their first airbag deployment a week before their 2nd birthday.

Will keep you posted on undercarriage damage as we get information from Mercedes.

ps - another thing I realized once again is to always have comprehensive insurance on your vehicles. That fact made this much less stressful as I knew that no matter what happened during the extraction process I was covered.

 

I recently was making a left turn into a grocery store in my 'new' 02 c230 that I went through a lot of grief to get, and
was focused on a car coming out of the store, and nearly turned
directly into the path of a HUGE pickup truck (there are all huge these days!)
The thing would've destroyed and totaled the car on all panels. Fortunately my wife was there
and stopped me. I was tired at the time, and a bit out of sorts.
Shook me up though that I nearly made such a grievous mistake.
If she hadn't been there bye bye immaculate 36K mile 23 year old car plus potential injuries.