Mercedes-Benz issues global recall of one million older cars

theguardian.com:

Mercedes-Benz has announced it is immediately recalling nearly one million older vehicles worldwide due to a potential problem with the braking system.

Germany’s federal transport authority (KBA) said that the recall affected cars built between 2004 and 2015 of the SUV series ML and GL, and the R-Class luxury minivan.

993,407 vehicles were being recalled worldwide, including about 70,000 in Germany, the KBA added.

It is not known how many vehicles in the UK are affected.

“Corrosion on the brake booster can in the worst case lead to the connection between the brake pedal and the braking system being interrupted,” the KBA said.

“As a consequence, the service brake can stop functioning.”

Mercedes-Benz confirmed the recall in a statement to the AFP news agency, stating the move was based on “analysis of isolated reports for certain vehicles”.

“In rare cases of very severe corrosion, it might be possible for a particularly strong or hard braking manoeuvre to cause mechanical damage to the brake booster, whereby the connection between brake pedal and brake system would fail,” Mercedes said.

“In such a very rare case, it would not be possible to decelerate the vehicle via the service brake. Thus, the risk of a crash or injury would be increased.”

The company said it would “start with the recall immediately” and contact the owners of the “potentially affected vehicles”.

“The recall process will involve inspecting potentially affected vehicles and, depending on the results of the inspection, replacing the parts where necessary,” the Stuttgart-based company said.

“Until the inspection takes place, we ask our customers not to drive their vehicles.”