why dont you just lemon law the vehicle? I dont understand the going back and forth so many times

 

Because it's not that easy. It's not like you go to MB and say "Give my money back" and they just write a check. At least for now, the easiest route is to try and get the problem fixed. But, it's starting to really tick me off that I have video and they're still at the "well, there's no problem when you bring the car in so what do you expect us to do?" stage.

 

Did you follow Fab's advice and call MB. It will get you better attention and maybe better ideas as to a fix.

You have been extremely (too) patient at this stage. Especially if you have evidence of it occurring on video.

This is clearly a major (even in infrequently occurring) dangerous and unacceptable fault on a brand new car! Don't stand for it.

 

Hire a Lawyer. I would never put up with this much the none-sense.

 

You do live in the same world we do right? Try suing a major corporation. Even better try lemon lawing a car. You'll find a few shocking realities (mostly that you don't have anywhere near the money to make much happen in court).

As for the car: Get it "fixed" and sell it. I 100% sympathize with you. I went through similar horror stories with my 2012 GL350 and sold the piece for a 2014 Toyota Sequoia. Much like you I wanted a "plush ride"/etc. Guess what? The Toyota doesn't have as great a ride, but it doesn't live at the dealer every other month either. Even better is I'm not hit with endless dealer excuses for why their cars perpetually implode and leak fluids like a full baby diaper 2 years into it's life.

Man, I wish this stuff was more known. MB truly blows my mind how low end their engineering is.

 

You take them to small claims court not the supreme court. Research the process, its not as difficult as everyone thinks.

 

My symptoms were a little different, but in a similar area...

Ever since we had our GL last September, I've found the 7 speed auto box rather lazy and hesitant at times. Really our only complaint about the car and we learned to live with it. Then one morning my wife took the children took school and she lost all power on a busy road junction.

She stuttered to the side of the road and called Mobilo (Mercedes own road side assistance programme here in the UK). They came, checked it over with full computer diagnostics, noted it was the ECO Stop/Start system noting a low engine speed. Cleared all the codes, took it for a test drive, and gave us a print out of the diagnostics check.

Yesterday I took it in to our supplying dealer and was all prepared for an argument, as I expected the computer would say no On the way there the gearbox kept on picking the wrong gear in my opinion, and thinking too long about it. Not quite low engine speed and unfortunately also not severe enough for fault codes.

Anyway got the call later, service department was confident they fixed it. There were two problems;
1. One of the two batteries was in a defective state - odd for a new car, but hey these things happen and they replaced it.
2. There was a soft update for the front SAM module which was applied.

Driving back home last night, the car has been transformed. No more lazy gearbox, it is now very good at picking the gears ready for nearly every situation.

Naturally I appreciate that the issues for the OP are different and could be very different, however here in the UK there is an update available for the SAM which is effectively the network router for all the metrics the car is taking. I don't know when it was released but worth another shot. Also get the batteries checked by your dealer, faulty batteries can cause all sorts of weird and wonderful symptoms.

 

The problem happened again with symptoms pretty much the same as in prior incidents. I took much video so it would be hard to deny the problem existed (though video didn't stop them from denying it the last time). Anyway, this time I was close enough to the dealer to drive there while the malfunction was in progress. The head tech went for a ride with me and witnessed the problems with his own eyes so at least the pissing contest about there being a problem was over.

The tech then put a scanner on the whatever it is they scan and found that a valve of some sort in the exhaust regeneration system was malfunctioning. (the exhaust regeneration system, as I understand it, kicks in every now and again to super-heat and thereby clean some filter or other in the exhaust system...if I don't have this exactly right, it's not important anyway so don't get your shorts all in a bunch).

The important thing is that whatever the malfunctioning valve does, it also seems to wreak havoc with the transmission when it's happening. I don't know why. The tech said that once he found the malfunctioning valve, he was then able to search the MB factory data base and found a case exactly like mine. That other case was remedied by replacement of the valve and cleaning some contacts in the associated system. The tech said he replaced the valve and cleaned the contacts so he expects with a high degree of confidence that my problem is fixed. I hope so but won't know for sure until I drive the car for a couple of months. If the problems don't re-occur, then they were obviously fixed but it will take some time to see how that plays out.

And to the erstwhile fellow thinks a lemon law claim is as simple as "just take them to small claims court," all I can say is that you must live in a much simpler place than the real world. In the US, a lemon law case is essentially by definition not allowed in small claims court. I'm not familiar with Canadian small claims court laws, but I'd be pretty shocked if the definition of "small claim," even in Canadian dollars, is large enough to include a dispute over a $70k+ vehicle. Typically, small claims courts have jurisdictional limits of about $2k - $7500, meaning that can't hear cases any larger than that. And small claims courts, at least those with which I'm familiar, can't do anything other than award damages (up to the fairly small limit imposed by the small claims court rules of the involved state). A small claims court judge usually doesn't have the authority to order, for example, a car manufacturer to take back its car and refund the purchase price to the owner.

And once you're in court, anything can happen. Starting with the absolute certainty that MB will fight to the death. After all, their position until this most recent malfunction was that no problem existed so I think it a pretty good bet that they wouldn't roll over on a lemon law claim. Then there is always the possibility that you can lose. In which case you have a bum car and no cooperation from MB. That's pretty much the definition of being screwed.

For me and anyone who lives in reality, getting the car fixed was the best outcome and that seems to have happened. At least for the most part. There is still the problem of less than smooth downshifting, but I haven't driven the car enough to conclude if that problem is still present.

 

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot - this latest trip to the dealer happened around the 10k mile mark so I told 'em to change the oil and that I'd handle the DEF because they charge way too much. The SA said that was fine. When I picked the car up, the SA told me that they topped up my DEF tank as a courtesy due to all the trouble I've been having.

That's a nice gesture and I thanked the SA. On the other hand, my guess is that the DEF cost them less than $10 so they didn't exactly kill themselves by comping it. Still, it saved me not only the money to buy the DEF, but it saved me the PITA getting it and putting it in so I'm (a little) grateful. It would have been a bit more meaningful had they comped the oil change ($130). Just sayin'.

 

It seems we have entered the age where the car techs basically refuse or perhaps even are unable to figure anything out on the car unless it generates a code for them to lookup on their computer so it will tell them how to fix it. I've run into the same kind of behavior at my MB dealer. No code, no fix/they pretend it doesn't exist or flat out refuse to do anything. They run their service dept at such an overloaded level it takes 2.5 weeks to schedule an appt if you want a loaner, and the techs can't spare a moment to try and think outside the box.

 

Looks like you lose. Just PM me the beer and try not to spill it all over my monitor.

 

Hi pleased you got the car fixed, but I'm not sure you are out of the woods yet.


The section of the exhaust you are referring too is the Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) - this might be a European term, which if it is not working right could cause the engine to be upset thus telling the gearbox not to change or allow revs too high.


The DPF catches the soot produced by the Diesel engine and periodically burns it off again by raising the DPF temperature by over revving - you may notice this from time to time. Therefore your lovely GL will not produce clouds of black smoke like trucks do, and all this helps meet the emissions laws etc etc.


You'd think this was good right? Well not for the owner, in Europe where just about every new car is Diesel these things have been a royal pain. Many companies now offer DPF removal services and ECU re-programs to ignore the inputs from the very sensors that monitor the flow on your GL.


The real problem is that DPF issues don't occur in the first 3 years of ownership so MB won't give a stuff when they start going wrong.


All that said the early ones around 2006 were bad, but they are getting better. Last year a friend of purchased a second hand 2005 Volvo explicitly to avoid owning a DPF.


I only know one price point for a dealer DPF replacement and that was on an Audi A4 at $3000, which I guess is cheaper than a gearbox.


Given that they think your DPF was playing up, I'd still like to know why the STAR diagnostics was clueless for all your previous visits - that is very worrying!


As you say, I'll PM you the beer!

 

Oh yes, one sure fire way of sooting up and wrecking a DPF is to do lots of short journeys not allowing the engine to get warm. Mind you, that kind of behaviour also makes your turbo fail too!


Interestingly in the UK you now see comments like "Don't buy a Diesel unless you do around 15,000 miles a year plus"!!!!!

 

I got my brand new Mercedes Benz GLC 300 2016 last week and after driving for 5 days and less than 300 miles in total on my odometer the SUV just stopped responding in the middle of highway at 70 mph with a transmission malfunction error on the dashboard. I was lucky enough to pull it from the left most lane to the right curb but it was extremely scary to see the car abruptly stop responding in the middle of highway. I am rethinking on why I bought Mercedes.


Called in the roadside assistance and they were alarmed too with such an incidence. The car started after sometime, once I opened the driver side door while I was talking with the roadside assistance.


I was searching if people had similar issues reported and found your thread in this regard. Were you able to find any solution? or if you can share how Mercedes responded to your concern. I am scared to drive my car on highway now, who knows when it stops next in the middle of what traffic.

 

Hi OP do you have in depth detail for this problem? My new 2016 GL350 had this problem for a year now it just comes and goes. I've been to MB few times now and they have done 2 repairs/replace parts regarding this problem but it still happens.

 

My 2014 GL350 had this same issue. they spent weeks working on it with no resolution. Eventually there was a tsb of some sort to replace the wire crimps on the exhaust back pressure sensor at the turbo, and at the ECU end. This surprisingly fixed the issue and have not had any problems in 4 weeks now. It used to show up every few days this problem prior to them replacing the crimps. I can grab the service order and details if you wanted, to show your dealer the fix they did on my car. Good luck.

 

Had this same intermittent delayed downshift issue in my wife's 2014 GL350. No codes, paddle shifter non functional and the torque converter would not lock up. Turning the engine off and restarting would fix it until at random intervals it did it again. Dealer said the trans fluid was low. They serviced the unit and it has been fine ever since.

 

Thank you sir, today it happened again and I drove the car to the dealer while the problem exists, they connected the car to a computer and found some error code, they say it was the same code 5 days ago and they have already replace the parts for that error code. So they have no idea what happened and they made a copy of all the info of my car and said will send it to MB for analyze.

I will see what they come up with this time before I bother you to get all the service order details. Thank you.