Too few owners filed complaints about the 2008 C-Class in its first three years to say whether it is a better or a worse year than the others. Among the 4 C-Class years with enough complaints to compare, owners filed the fewest about the 2013 (0.38 per 1,000 sold) and the most about the 2015 (0.67).
Safety complaints filed by owners in the first three years, per 1,000 sold.
too few complaints to rank against its other years
Counted from 18 complaints filed in the first three years, of 816 ever. 95% lower bound 0.13.
The model year carries far more information than the badge, so this is the comparison that matters. The bar is how many complaints each rate rests on.
| Model year | Per 1,000 | Complaints | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 0.25 | 18 | |
| 2009 | 0.22 | 14 | |
| 2010 | 0.20 | 11 | |
| 2011 | 0.11 | 7 | |
| 2012 | 0.13 | 10 | |
| 2013 | 0.38 | 32 | |
| 2014 | 0.24 | 20 | |
| 2015 | 0.67 | 54 | |
| 2016 | 0.39 | 32 | |
| 2017 | 0.44 | 34 | |
| 2018 | 0.29 | 20 |
Phrases over-represented in these complaints compared with the same component on every other vehicle. Counts are complaints containing the phrase.
| recall | 264 | 82% | |
| takata | 185 | 57% | |
| numbers | 76 | 24% | |
| numbers air | 75 | 23% | |
| campaign numbers | 75 | 23% | |
| recall notification | 68 | 21% |
| electronic | 58 | 21% | |
| steering lock | 57 | 20% | |
| tail | 55 | 20% | |
| eis | 51 | 18% | |
| melted | 41 | 15% | |
| electronic ignition | 33 | 12% |
| start | 122 | 73% | |
| lock | 102 | 61% | |
| steering lock | 74 | 44% | |
| eis | 30 | 18% | |
| esl | 26 | 15% | |
| failed start | 19 | 11% |
Failures arrive late and spread out, which looks like wear. Service history matters more than model year here.
The VIN an owner files names the engine, which places 452 of this year’s 816 complaints. Sales by engine are not published, so these are not rates and say nothing about which engine drew more complaints. What can be compared is what each engine’s owners reported.
| Engine | Complaints | About the engine or fuel system | Of those, before 30,000 miles |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.0 L 6-cylinder | 326 | 3% | too few mileages |
| 3.5 L 6-cylinder | 126 | 5% | too few mileages |
Engines as NHTSA’s VIN decoder (vPIC) reads them from the first eleven characters of each VIN. “Turbo” is shown only where every VIN records one; the decoder leaves it blank on many turbo engines. 364 complaints are not in the table: no usable VIN, an engine vPIC could not decode, or an engine with fewer than 25 complaints.
Loss of rear lighting assembly
Too few owners filed complaints about the 2008 C-Class in its first three years to say whether it is a better or a worse year than the others. Among the 4 C-Class years with enough complaints to compare, owners filed the fewest about the 2013 (0.38 per 1,000 sold) and the most about the 2015 (0.67). The typical year is the median across its model years.
The parts owners named most often in complaints filed to date: Air Bags (322), Electrical System (281), Steering (168). The phrases they used are listed above.
Complaint records cannot settle that on their own. They count safety problems owners chose to report to the federal government, not every repair. What they do show is how this year compares with the other C-Class years: too few owners filed complaints about the 2008 C-Class in its first three years to say whether it is a better or a worse year than the others.
Among years with enough complaints to compare, the 2013, at 0.38 per 1,000 sold. Every C-Class year, ranked.
Of the 2 guides that rate the 2008 C-Class, 1 lists it among the years to avoid and none among the best. The complaint records here hold too few complaints about it to rank it.
| Guide | Its verdict on 2008 | Based on |
|---|---|---|
| REREVcomplaint and recall records, and owner forums | Not singled out | complaint and recall records, and owner forums |
| CarWhere (its C 300 page)NHTSA complaints, weighted by severity | Avoid | NHTSA complaints, weighted by severity |
| Auto Reliability IndexNHTSA recalls and complaints, as a 0-100 score | Not rated | NHTSA recalls and complaints, as a 0-100 score |
Read on 2026-11-14. Each verdict is the guide’s own: we record only the years it names, and link to it. A guide that counts complaints without dividing by sales can flag a year simply because more of it were sold.
Example records behind this page, each on NHTSA’s own site: