If you drive one of the cars with the three-pointed star at the front, then you'll want to know about a very serious recall that's currently affecting nearly 500,000 vehicles in the United States.
Daimler AG announced on Monday, October 16th, that 495,000 vehicles were being recalled in the U.S. because of potential unintended airbag deployments. In addition, another 400,000 vehicles are being recalled in Britain, as well as another 76,000 in Canada. The German automaker will also be recalling a few hundred thousand in Germany, according to U.S. News & World Report.
So what exactly is the issue with these vehicles?
Well, to be technical, it's a combination of an electrostatic discharge, unsatisfactory grounding of steering components, and a broken clock spring, which can result in the unplanned deployment of the front driver-side airbag in the vehicles being recalled, according to The New York Times.
The specific vehicle involved in this massive recall are 2012-2018 model year automobiles from the A,B,C, and E-Class family of sedans and coupes, as well as CLA, GLA, and GLV vehicles. The C-Class happens to be Mercedes' best-selling vehicle in the U.S. with 58,959 units moved through the first nine months of this year.
To help resolve this issue, dealers in the U.S. will be adding new grounding to the steering components.
Automotive News reported that no deaths have been associated with this airbag issue and that is doesn't have anything to do with the Takata airbag recall. However, a Mercedes spokeswoman in the U.S. did go on the record as saying there were "a handful of instances where drivers suffered minor abrasions or bruises" as result of the airbag issue, according to AutoBlog.
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