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Mercedes-Benz C 300 — what the federal data shows

2018–2025 · 0 federal complaints on file

Not enough complaints have been filed about this model to break them down by engine honestly — that needs at least 50 for a single engine. Everything we do have on it is below, from the same federal sources as every other page.

Mercedes-Benz C 300
Photo: Charles from Port Chester, New York · CC BY 2.0

Ownership profile

Each axis is this model's percentile within its own segment — comparing a pickup's fuel economy against a compact car's would say nothing. Built from EPA test data.

Fuel economy51Running cost42Low emissions49Cabin space8Cargo space24Displacement46
26 MPG Fuel economy$2,900/yr Running cost344 g/mi Low emissions81 cu ft Cabin space10 cu ft Cargo space2.0 L Displacement

Value for money

25/ 100

$41,400

Capability per relative dollar, ranked against the same segment. It divides this model's average percentile across the axes above by its price relative to the segment median — so 80 means it delivers more per dollar than 80% of its class.

Price source: CarAPI vehicle trim database — base-trim MSRP, median across 2018-2020 model years. Unlike every other figure on this page, the price does not come from a federal record. It is the manufacturer's list price for the cheapest trim — what people actually paid varies with incentives and options, so treat this one axis as indicative, not exact.

Recalls on this model

Unlike everything above, recalls are issued for the whole model, not per engine — NHTSA publishes them by make, model and year. These are defects the manufacturer confirmed and filed federally, which makes them a useful counterweight to owner-reported complaints.

32 recalls · covering 2018–2025 · 2 fixable with a software update

Electrical System 9Fuel System, Gasoline 3Structure 3Seat Belts 2Exterior Lighting 2Communication 2Seats 2Steering 2
All recalls, with campaign numbers
YearsComponentNHTSA campaign
2022–2023Latches/Locks/Linkages › Doors › Lock26V481000
2025–2025Electrical System › Instrument Cluster/Panel26V281000
2023–2023Electrical System › Wiring › Fuses And Circuit Breakers25V255000
2022–2025Seat Belts › Front25V253000
2022–2023Electrical System › Wiring › Fuses And Circuit Breakers24V446000
2023–2024Electrical System › Wiring › Fuses And Circuit Breakers24V115000
2022–2024Fuel System, Gasoline › Delivery › Fuel Pump23V880000
2018–2020Structure › Body › Roof And Pillars23V854000
2022–2023Electrical System › Wiring23V463000
2021–2023Fuel System, Gasoline › Delivery › Fuel Pump23V445000
2018–2021Electrical System › Software22V365000
2019–2021Back Over Prevention › Display Function22V232000
2019–2019Fuel System, Gasoline › Fuel Injection System › Fuel Rail21V961000
2018–2020Exterior Lighting › Headlights21V509000
2018–2020Structure › Body › Roof And Pillars21V197000
2018–2019Communication21V072000
2018–2021Electrical System › Software21V058000
2018–2021Seat Belts › Front › Retractor21V032000
2020–2020Engine And Engine Cooling › Engine › Gasoline › Turbo/Supercharger20V364000
2020–2020Communication20V068000
2018–2019Electrical System › 12V/24V/48V Battery19V586000
2019–2019Forward Collision Avoidance › Sensing System › Radar19V540000
2018–2018Seats19V130000
2018–2018Exterior Lighting › Headlights18V906000
2018–2018Steering18V872000
2018–2019Steering › Rack And Pinion › Rack18V850000
2018–2018Air Bags › Sensor › Occupant Classification18V838000
2018–2018Electrical System › 12V/24V/48V Battery › Cables18V725000
2018–2018Visibility › Glass, Side/Rear18V608000
2018–2018Structure › Body18V456000
2018–2018Seats18V207000
2018–2018Air Bags › Frontal17V627000

Recall repairs are free, always — any franchised dealer, regardless of the car's age, mileage, or how many owners it has had. A great many cars are driving around with recalls nobody ever redeemed.

More recalls does not mean a worse car. Recall counts rise with sales volume and model complexity, and a manufacturer that recalls promptly looks worse than one that drags its feet. Read what the recalls were for, not how many there were.

Check a specific car by VIN at NHTSA →
Method, sources and limitations

How this was built

  1. Source: NHTSA public complaint database (api.nhtsa.gov), retrieved 2026-08-16. Every complaint carries the first 11 characters of the vehicle's VIN.
  2. Those partial VINs were decoded through NHTSA's vPIC service to identify the exact engine — 98.2% resolved successfully. This is how the data gets to engine level; model-level ratings cannot do this.
  3. Percentages are the share of component mentions, not of complaints. One complaint can name several components, so the figures describe what a given engine's complaints are about — they do not sum to a failure rate.

What this does not tell you

  • This is not a reliability ranking. Complaint totals track how many were sold, not how often they fail. Nobody publishes per-engine sales volume, so comparing totals between engines would be misleading. Read each engine's own breakdown; don't race them against each other.
  • Engines with fewer than 50 complaints are omitted — too small to say anything honest about.
  • Complaints are self-reported by owners. They skew toward problems that are alarming or expensive, and toward vehicles under active recall attention.

Compare with

Or see the whole segment at once: Compact car →

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