AtWhatMileage
Transmission · 16 owner reports

Other powertrain problem on the 2016 Mercedes Benz C300

Only 4 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 16
With an odometer reading 4
Reports per 1,000 built 1.9 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 50%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $400–$4,500
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 5th

When other powertrain problem gets reported

There are 16 reports of other powertrain problem on the 2016 Mercedes Benz C300, 4 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 4 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 74,296 miles — —

Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.

What a percentile can and cannot tell you here

These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.

What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.

Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.

What happens, and what it costs

Putting it right typically runs $400–$4,500 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 6 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2015, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2012 at 90,000 miles.

By volume the 2016 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.

If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.

Median
  1. 2008 Mercedes Benz C300 other powertrain problem 59k
  2. 2009 Mercedes Benz C300 other powertrain problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  3. 2010 Mercedes Benz C300 other powertrain problem 45k
  4. 2011 Mercedes Benz C300 other powertrain problem 70k
  5. 2012 Mercedes Benz C300 other powertrain problem 88k
  6. 2014 Mercedes Benz C300 other powertrain problem 24
  7. 2015 Mercedes Benz C300 other powertrain problem 8k
  8. 2016 (this one) 74k

Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

When at a red light and the car is idling, all of a sudden the car jerks forward. If the brake is not engaged hard, I have experienced the car feeling like it will lunge forward. This occurs each and every time I am idling at a red light.

3,592 miles NHTSA complaint 1360231 filed 2017-03-02

C300 anti collision sensor malfunction light displayed and loss engine power for several seconds. The car was traveling aprox 20 MPH at the time on city street. Then power resumed, the warning light went out. Mercedes-benz of temecula, ca could not find a problem. Workorder 229423, 9/13/16

900 miles NHTSA complaint 1317296 filed 2016-09-14

Also reported on the 2016 Mercedes Benz C300

Other engine problem

80 reports median 24k

Sunroof failure or glass breakage

55 reports median 45k

Other fuel system problem

36 reports median 60k

Other electrical problem

22 reports median 20k

Fuel leak or fuel odor

12 reports median 48k

Other body or interior problem

12 reports median 20k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 16 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 16 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.

Questions this page answers

At what mileage does other powertrain problem happen on the 2016 Mercedes Benz C300?

Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 75,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other powertrain problem on the 2016 Mercedes Benz C300?

16 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.9 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.

What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars

Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed