Other powertrain problem on the 2012 Mercedes Benz E350
2 crashes 1 injury 3 of the 8 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
Only 5 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.
When other powertrain problem gets reported
There are 8 reports of other powertrain problem on the 2012 Mercedes Benz E350, 5 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 10th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 20,000 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
Of these reports, 2 a crash and 1 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
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 9 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2012, at a median of 20,000 miles, and latest on the 2016 at 105,000 miles.
By volume the 2006 carries the most reports, with 26; the 2012 has 8. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
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.
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.
Vehicle stops accelerating while driving. This has happened 4 times. At all other times, vehicle drives normally. Problem has occurred when accelerating after vehicle brakes have been applied to slow down. This is an automatic transmission and it seems that the car is not down shifting or the auto clutch is not engaging to allow down shift while accelerating. It drives like it's in 4th gear when it should be in 1st or 2nd gear if it were a manual transmission. There is a grinding sound as if the clutch was not pushed in fully while shifting if it were a manual transmission. At this point the car will only go about 10-15 MPH until engine is turned off. When car is restarted, it runs normally. No check engine light comes on. Dealership states no fault codes were stored and they can not fix it unless they have a fault code or see it happen. They did road test it, but it didn't happen while they had the car. They did update the software to the transmission and hope that might fix the problem. I think this is a safety issue, because it happens without warning intermittently. I asked that they call the car engineers and ask what 3 -5…
While driving on an express way in dallas, texas my gps made an error concerning an exit and I was required to divert quickly to the left to make exit lane .time was 6:00 pm ,heavy traffic conditions and road and weather conditions were excellent and dry. My mercedes pre activated a skid mode and there was approximately a 70% cut back in engine power .a yellow engine light came on and skid mode came on operator screen but there was no skidding taking place. I was helpless with no power to keep up with the 50-60 MPH traffic while trying to get into lane .consequently a semi tractor struck my left rear fender /bumper causing damage to my mercedes. There was no damage to the tractor. According to mercedes the vehicle was supposed to do this as a safety feature. If this is true then they actually in my opinion while developing safety features created another un safe condition where as the semi could have run over my wife and I killing us both. This was truly a near miss and we are very much concerned about it happening again to us or some one else, resulting in a fatal accident, not just a fender bender. Mercedes is in denial…
Tl* the contact owns a 2012 mercedes benz e350. The contact stated that the vehicle was secured with the engine turned off when the vehicle rolled away in reverse independently and as the contact was exiting the front driver's side door. The contact was knocked to the ground by the open door, which then crashed into the rear fender of an unoccupied and parked vehicle. The vehicle continued to roll away and came to a stop when encountering a nearby curb. The contact sustained bruises all over the body and required medical attention. A police report was not filed of the incident. The vehicle was towed to an authorized dealer. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 6,000.
Also reported on the 2012 Mercedes Benz E350
Airbag inflator rupture
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
Brake line, hose or caliper failure
Wiring harness or short circuit
Other engine problem
Other fuel system problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 8 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 8 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 2012 Mercedes Benz E350?
Across 5 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 20,000 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 2012 Mercedes Benz E350?
8 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 2.0 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