NHTSA Complaint #11696352 — 2023 MERCEDES-BENZ EQE 350 4MATIC

ALL TIRES MENTIONED HERE ARE PIRELLI ZERO RUN FLAT TIRES (MBQ-8-40-3071, PIRELLI 255/35R21) My Mercedes EQE equipped with 21” AMG wheels has suffered six blowouts using Pirelli ride fat tires that came with the car. It seems the car is too heavy for this tire/wheel configuration, which is a standard option and was installed on the car when I leased it. EQE, EQS, and S Class owners have reported the same problem in online forums over the last several years, specifically with 21” AMG wheels and ride Yat tires. All cases of this happening presented immediate risks, fortunately no crash occurred. Four incidents damaged one front tire, one incident damaged a front and rear tire. Mercedes should recall vehicles with this wheel and tire combination. The car has just 22,000 miles, bringing the mean time between failure for six tires to just 3,667 miles — well below the norm. I have owned many cars and typically average about 75,000 or more miles per tire, and never have catastrophic blowouts. The blowouts seem to occur because the Pirelli ride-flat tires have exceptionally stiff sidewalls that appear to fail under lateral impact resulting from even the most minor road imperfections. The car’s forward camber, low center of gravity, and heaviness exacerbate the problem. Two blowouts occurred while transiting over standard slightly recessed steel manhole covers traversed by thousands of vehicles daily. I have driven other Mercedes loaner vehicles with no incident. The problem appeared within a week of vehicle lease (May 2023) and I lost three tires in October 2025, within days of each other: once the day after a prior repair. I was also stuck waiting for repairs on a busy highway for 3 hours. This is a dangerous situation and needs a recall. Once is bad luck, twice is peculiar, three times is a pattern, four times is a design Yaw, and six times it’s negligence. I think the car is great otherwise but this is a dangerous design flaw and needs to be addressed by the company.