Fully loaded, 2 month old R320 explodes suddenly in our driveway during a Colorado blizzard. See the complete story and pictures at Mercedes R320 Explosion
Wow !!... I am truly shaken by what I've just read. I think that all R-Class owners should DEMAND an explanation by Mercedes Benz as to the cause of the explosion ! If there is a recall of all the cars to rectify this problem so be it but we as consumers must be kept informed. Is there any means through this forum or others that we as owners can be kept informed as to what actually happened so catastrophically in this instance ?? Hey, I bought this car because I thought it was a safe car !
The mercedes dealer would also like us to believe that a 34 year old house wife could somehow cause this. The forensics expert investigating the case thinks otherwise.
This is a very unusual case and I hope for the safety of other R owners (or CDI vehicles) that this turns out to be a single-case fluke.
Location: Houston, Texas, United States of America
Posts: 233
From her narrative, she seems to have certainly left the fueling process relatively unattended. That's never a great idea.
It's certainly a strange -- and hopefully isolated -- case, but I'm glad to hear that your family members are OK. Although I'm neither an attorney, nor an expert in forensics, it would seem that a simple tire explosion wouldn't cause that kind of damage. It would have to be a very impressive tire explosion, at the least! It sounds more like a complex chain of events was responsible for the incident. I found a document regarding a completely unrelated, but similarly intriguing event on Google. I can't help but wonder whether or not a few of the principles described in that article might also apply to your incident.
Furthermore, it's conceivable that the transmission could have just slipped into reverse. Just recently, the transmission used in another DaimlerChrysler product, the Chrysler 300C, was recalled for a certain tendency to slip into reverse. While correlation doesn't imply causation, it's still moderately intriguing.
2 month old R320 explodes in driveway!! 
The mercedes dealer agrees! 
Linear Mode
