Has this ever happened in Malaysia?
An angry owner of a Mercedes Benz GLE in the United States is suing Mercedes Benz for USD200 million because of an exploding sunroof.
The owner of the GLE is filed a class-action lawsuit against the luxury car manufacturer alleging that Mercedes Benz over the case of the exploding panoramic sunroof and alleges that Mercedes Benz sold vehicles with sunroofs that eventually shatter.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiff claims that the sunroof of his Mercedes-Benz GLE exploded suddenly while his sister was driving on a highway, one sunny day last March. While traveling at 55 mph, the plaintiff’s sister heard a sound like a shotgun blast emanating from inside the vehicle. After pulling over safely to determine the source of the noise, she discovered that the rear seats were covered in shattered glass and the panoramic sunroof on the GLE has caved in. The plaintiff further alleges that there is no exterior damage inflicted to the car.
Interestingly, this is not the first time that Mercedes Benz has had problems with exploding sunroofs in their vehicles and has been taken to court over it.
In 2015, another class action lawsuit was filed in California by owner of a 2015 Mercedes Benz GLA250. In that lawsuit, the owner retells a similar story of the panoramic sunroof of his GLA supposedly shattered without warning when he was behind the wheel. The exploding sunroof caused glass to enter the driver’s eye and hair. The plaintiff for this case alleges that this sunroof exploding issue is a common and known defect. The plaintiff further claims that Mercedes Benz had known about this safety hazard and failed to warn owners regarding this issue. This lawsuit was partially dismissed in favour of the plaintiff and Mercedes Benz had issued a statement claiming that it does not agree with the claims the plaintiff had previously stated.
There are however more Mercedes Benz sunroof woes, which comes in the form of a recall that just occurred in January this year for 774,000 Mercedes Benz cars. The recall for these quarter of a million cars was for sunroof glass that could detach when the vehicle is moving. Affecting a wide range of cars like the C-Class, CLK-Class, CLS-Class, and E-Class that span over 10 years of production from 2001 to 2011, the recall was done because the bonding agent used to keep the sunroof glass attached may fail, thus causing the glass to detach from the car.
Funnily enough though, the recall was only specific to the United States. Even though the sunroof on all Mercedes Benz models should be the same worldwide. And even more interesting is that both reported cases of exploding sunroofs on Mercedes Benzes just happen to come out from the America.
However just to put Malaysian Mercedes owners who do have panoramic sunroof at ease, the recalls for the detaching sunroof does not affect any car from outside of the US. And in several million Mercedes Benz built, only 2 known sunroof explosions occurred. So statistically, you should be alright, until Mercedes Benz Malaysia issues a recall notice on sunroofs that is.
Research and Text by Joshua Chin
