Debbie Taylor

Review of South Bay Mercedes-Benz

The employees are very polite but unable to solve ...

The employees are very polite but unable to solve a serious safety issue. We purchased our Mercedes 2013 ML 350 SUV with approximately 25,000 miles on it from Mercedes Benz of South Bay in Torrance, CA in 2016. We have consistently and reliably brought it in for scheduled maintenance with the same dealer from whom we purchased the vehicle. We take meticulous care of it and it is garaged in our home in a quiet suburb, Palos Verdes Estates, CA. We currently have approximately 88,000 miles on it. We purchased it hoping to get at least 150,000 miles on it since we take such good care of it. This past year we started to have shift problems with it. Specifically, if I backed out of the driveway and tried to go from reverse to drive, it would not shift out of reverse. I had to turn the car off and then on again to get it to shift into drive. Likewise, if I was trying to parallel park and shifted from drive to reverse it would not come out of drive. Again I had to turn the car off and then on again to get it into reverse. This drive/reverse shifting problem is intermittent and has probably happened about 6-12 times in the last 6-8 months.The biggest safety concern is when I shifted it into park in our garage, exited from the car and it started to roll backward. The first time it happened I thought I may have forgotten to put it in park. But when I got back into the car I saw that it was in park. So I started the car, moved it back to its position in the garage and got out again, making sure it was in park. It started rolling back again. When I opened the door to try to hop back in and stop it from rolling backward, the act of opening the door without me in it, put the car in park. The last time this happened, it backed into my husband's Porsche! Thankfully no damage was done as the Mercedes wheel hit the wheel of the Porsche. This ineffective shift into park has happened about 6 times in the last 5-6 months. This is a grave safety issue. We live on a street where kids walk back and forth to school. God forbid if this car ever hit a child on the way to school. We have brought it into our dealer's service department about 4 times for these shift issues. The first time they replaced two batteries. The problem continued. Another service visit they said there was a recall and they replaced the entire steering column. We were hopeful the problem was solved but after about 3 months the ineffective park problem came back. The challenge is that when we bring it back to the service department, because it is so intermittent, they can't find anything wrong with it!

I just picked it up from service today and spoke with the head mechanic. He informed me that there is nothing else they can do. He said they sent the diagnostics to Germany (?) for interpretation. The transmission is fine and they can't anything wrong with it. He guaranteed to me that the emergency brake is functional. We will try to remember to always use the emergency brake when we park it. But we don't feel 100% safe in it.

Our expectation is that Mercedes can solve the problem. We love the car but need it to be safe. If Mercedes can't permanently solve this shift problem then we expect to trade in this car to you and be given another vehicle of the same make and model. We would be happy with another 2013 ML 350 with close to 88,000 miles on it and a tow hitch. Or at least a comparable vehicle that has a towing capacity of 7200 pounds so we can tow our Airstream trailer (fully loaded weighs less that 5000 pounds) .One that we can depend on to be safe. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Dan and Debbie Taylor