NHTSA Complaint #11444249 — 2017 MERCEDES-BENZ GLS550

We had our Mercedes GLS550 2017 with 59,295 overheat and call for immediate shut down on the Massachusetts Turnpike with my wife and child in the car. It was quite a dangerous situation because the failure caused by hose assembly 166-830-15-00 clamp (as described by the dealer as the reason for the loss of fluid and hose failure) caused almost an immediate overheating. The service advisor stated that it is "a quite common failure". I was quite suspicious, because just 11 days prior and 138 miles prior they had performed an Oil Change (Service B9), and thought their mechanic must have damaged the hose fitting they claimed broke. When I looked at the schematic, the fitting is quite close to the Oil Filter Cap, so I assumed that the mechanic accidentally knocked the plastic clamp and broke it. However, they said this was a "normal failure" on these cars. I am a data scientist and have requested failure rates for similar autos in the data cohorts of 50,000, to 60,000 miles and 4 to 5 years old. It woudl be also nice to see if there was data available that included Post B( service visits for the same failures. I was surprised they tracked this data since I was told it was a common failure of this part. Looking at the design of where the host runs, it is certainly exposed to a mechanics tools removing the Oil Filter wrench. If this is common, I would like to help other families with young children being stranded by the side of a busy highway. In this case, I told my wife to drive to the closest safe point even though the engine warning system said to stop immediately. The engine seems to survive fine. I dont know if you record other data on this type of hose assembly failure, but a redesign with non-plastic clamp might be more durable and more appropriate.