NHTSA Complaint #11431169 — 2017 MERCEDES-BENZ METRIS

I was driving in a very remote location in central Utah on a paved Utah state highway and I crossed a cattle guard at about 45 mph. Immediately after crossing the cattle guard, the power steering malfunctioned, an alarm sounded and this message in bright orange appeared on the instrument panel display “Power Steering Malfunction. See Owners Manual". I immediately pulled over and stopped the vehicle. Luckily, I had cell service, so I called my Mercedes-Benz dealership and talked to someone in the service department and I also called my mechanic at an independent Mercedes-Benz shop. After these phone calls and I concluded that it would not harm the power steering system to drive, I decided to continue driving -- without power steering assist. It was hard to steer, but not unsafe on the rural 2-lane road nor on rural I-70. After driving about 30 miles in 1/2 hour, I stopped at a rest area and turned off the engine for about 10 minutes. When I restarted the vehicle, the power steering was again functional and has not malfunctioned since then. After returning home I called Mercedes-Benz national customer assistance center. They were very unhelpful. All they would tell was that there was no recall campaign for my vehicle for this issue and that my vehicle is no longer under warranty – information I already knew. The agent told me I should schedule an appointment with my dealership to run diagnostics on the vehicle - not done. This doesn’t make sense to me as the power steering is now functioning correctly. Safety risk: This failure of the electronically controlled power steering system only happens when the vehicle is moving at a higher speed and the tires cross some kind of rough area on the road, such as a cattle guard or a rumple strip, making steering very difficult. See more information the Metris Forum website where others describe this occurrence. https://www.metrisforum.com/threads/another-2016-looses-power-steering-after-cattle-guard.10402/#post-120744.