Drove car approximately 10 miles to an appointment on a summer afternoon. Following 1.5 hr appointment, got in car, started it up, and headed home. Approximately 0.5 miles into the trip while driving in city traffic, the engine stopped completely without warning. Engine would not restart, no warning lights. Waited approximately 30 minutes and attempted to restart car. Car started and was driven slowly to repair shop. I was advised that this was a temperature sensor problem. Sensor was replaced and I've had no problems since, but my confidence in the car was obliterated. My concern is that I happened to escape getting into an accident when the engine stopped abruptly, and could have been in a serious accident had I been rear-ended or the engine shutdown had occurred at high speed on an interstate highway which likely would have had a disastrous result. This problem has been reported in other Mercedes models (C300) with no recall issued by Mercedes. Complete engine shutdown due to a sensor failure with no redundancy available is a serious design and safety issue. The same thing happened to another family member on a hot summer afternoon whose C300 had less than 2K miles on it, so this appears to be temperature related, not mileage related.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
engine shutdown
Drove car approximately 10 miles to an appointment on a summer afternoon. Following 1.5 hr appointment, got in car, started it up, and headed home. Approximately 0.5 miles into the trip while driving in city traffic, the engine stopped completely without warning. Engine would not restart, no warning lights. Waited approximately 30 minutes and attempted to restart car. Car started and was driven slowly to repair shop. I was advised that this was a temperature sensor problem. Sensor was replaced and I've had no problems since, but my confidence in the car was obliterated. My concern is that I happened to escape getting into an accident when the engine stopped abruptly, and could have been in a serious accident had I been rear-ended or the engine shutdown had occurred at high speed on an interstate highway which likely would have had a disastrous result. This problem has been reported in other Mercedes models (C300) with no recall issued by Mercedes. Complete engine shutdown due to a sensor failure with no redundancy available is a serious design and safety issue. The same thing happened to another family member on a hot summer afternoon whose C300 had less than 2K miles on it, so this appears to be temperature related, not mileage related.
- lillymac, Glen Allen, VA, US