Mercedes-Benz EQC frequently sees antifreeze leakage and drive motor failures, and hundreds of car owners jointly defend their rights three times

　　Reporter Gong Mengze

　　Recently, 245 Mercedes-Benz EQC owners issued a joint statement again, saying that they firmly disagreed with Beijing Benz's EQC recall arrangement, and raised 7 questions and 4 appeals to Mercedes-Benz officials, requesting the manufacturer to recall and solve the vehicle problem immediately.

　　According to the "Securities Daily" reporter, this is the third time in just three months since 2022 that EQC owners have adopted a public statement to protect their rights.

　　A representative of a car owner who defended his rights told a reporter from Securities Daily: "Mercedes-Benz issued a recall notice for EQC on February 22, but the vehicle will not be recalled until August 15. If we want us to continue to drive the defective car for 6 months, we are taking it. The life safety of all EQC owners is a child's play, and we firmly disagree!"

　　Once upon a time, as the first pure electric model under the Mercedes-Benz brand, the EQC was hailed as the transformation of Mercedes-Benz's electric strategy, but since its launch, the EQC has not only been in a slump in sales, but has also received frequent complaints about quality.

　　According to the data of the third-party defective car product information collection platform Car Quality Network, complaints about EQC in 2021 mainly focus on antifreeze leakage and drive motor failure.

　　The "Securities Daily" reporter noticed that starting from 2021, EQC owners have successively complained about the failure of the vehicle motor.

"It has been malfunctioning for half a year, and the 4S store has always said it is no problem at the beginning. In October 2021, the high-speed fault light alarmed. I stopped and restarted the fault light in my heart, and the fault light was still there. The next day I sent it to the 4S store and said it needed to be replaced. Drive motor. This problem occurred in less than a year, and I insisted on changing the car." A 2020 EQC 400 4MATIC owner introduced to reporters.

　　Another EQC owner, Shen Jia (pseudonym), described the process of discovering the motor failure to reporters in detail: after purchasing the car in July 2020, the motor coolant leakage alarm occurred in November of the same year; The front motor was required to be replaced; the motor failed again in September of the same year, and the front and rear motors were replaced for the second time after testing.

"In less than 7 months, there have been three major failures of key components. The value of new energy vehicles will depreciate quickly. If there is any residual value in such an overhaul, I insist on returning the car."

　　In an EQC national car owner group, many car owners have encountered a similar situation.

For this large-scale motor problem, car owners suspect that it is caused by product design defects.

The 2020 EQC 350 4MATIC car, Zhang Liang (pseudonym), told reporters, "Most of the EQCs planned to be recalled have had their front and rear motors replaced at least once, or three or four times. Regulators and functional departments complained. On February 18, 2022, Mercedes-Benz officials finally responded, but they only admitted that there were 10,104 domestic EQCs sold between November 30, 2018 and December 15, 2021. There is a manufacturing variation in the electric drive module.”

　　In fact, the EQC can be called a rare "slow-selling" model under Mercedes-Benz. Data shows that its sales in 2020 and 2021 are only 3,863 and 6,098, respectively.

　　As for the reason for the recall, Mercedes-Benz attributed it to "manufacturing deviations in the electric drive module" and also said that the cooling system in the module may have insufficient sealing problems, resulting in coolant leakage.

"If the coolant slightly seeps into the motor, the insulation resistance value of the high-voltage system may be reduced after long-term use, and the vehicle may not be able to start in extreme cases."

　　"Mercedes-Benz has always referred to the replacement of the front and rear motors as a drive module, and referred to the major safety hazards that occurred on a large scale as a 'possible' risk under extreme conditions. , is unacceptable to me." Zhang Liang believes that this is not just a motor manufacturing, but an EQC vehicle design issue.

Otherwise, "I have replaced the motor three times, and the vehicle still fails. Is there a problem with every motor I replace?"

　　More importantly, "Almost all car owners in the rights protection group of more than 400 people have received recall notices. It is conceivable that the EQC has a high failure rate." Zhang Liang said, "We believe that Mercedes-Benz continues to deliberately conceal the truth. , surreptitiously replace 'design defects' with 'manufacturing deviations', and continue to put substandard products that have not undergone complete safety testing on the market without improvement, allowing consumers to act as guinea pigs."

　　Zhang Liang has called the Mercedes-Benz 400 hotline many times to report the problem, but only got feedback such as "received the complaint message and has already reported it upwards".

Coincidentally, a number of car owners told reporters that after they called the service hotline and even sent an email to the Mercedes-Benz German headquarters, they only received replies such as "your question has been received" and nothing else.

　　In the latest joint statement, EQC owners put forward four demands to Mercedes-Benz: I hope Mercedes-Benz can immediately launch a recall plan to eliminate potential safety hazards; provide owners who have replaced their motors with the option of returning their cars according to the new version of the three-guarantee policy; The recalled vehicles that have had three electrical failures are provided with a lifetime warranty; the owners who have replaced the motor will be given a certain standard of used car depreciation compensation.

　　This is the third time Mercedes-Benz has recalled the EQC within a year.

The previous two occurred in April and August 2021 respectively. Among them, in April 2021, Mercedes-Benz implemented a large-scale recall involving more than 2.6 million vehicles, and some EQCs were included in the recall; the second in August 2021. This recall is entirely for the EQC.

At that time, Mercedes-Benz stated that the reason for recalling 796 EQCs was that “some vehicles could not identify the status of the air conditioner condensate hoses, which may cause air conditioner condensate water to enter the passenger compartment and corrode electronic components.” (Securities Daily)