Mercedes-Benz Recalls 58,822 Cars in Australia Over Door-Lock Fault That Can Stop Auto Park From Engaging

Image credit: Mercedes-Benz Australia

Mercedes-Benz Australia has issued one of its largest product-safety recalls in years. 58,822 cars across nine model lines and eight years of production are on the list, all over a door-lock microswitch that can fail if water gets in. The consequence is not that the door stops working. It is that the car does not always know the door has been opened, and if that signal never lands, the auto park function can fail to engage, leaving the vehicle able to move unintentionally after the driver has stepped out.

The recall was published on the federal Vehicle Recalls register on 12 August 2026 as REC-006695, campaign RC5219. It covers Mercedes-Benz vehicles built between 2018 and 2026 across the A-Class, B-Class, C-Class, CLA, CLE, EQA, GLA, GLB and GLC lines, plus multiple Mercedes-AMG performance grades of those same platforms.

What is actually going wrong

The federal recall notice describes the defect as a manufacturing issue where the door-lock microswitch may be susceptible to water damage. That microswitch is the small sensor that tells the car whether the door is currently open or closed. Every modern electric parking brake and auto-hold system leans on that signal to work out when to engage the brake automatically.

If the microswitch corrodes or fails, the car will not always detect the door as open when the driver actually gets out. Because the car does not think anyone has left, the auto park function may not engage automatically as intended. The vehicle stays in whatever gear the driver left it in, without the parking brake being applied by the system, which is where the roll-away risk comes from.

The federal notice puts it in the usual legal wording: a loss of auto park feature may result in unintended vehicle movement. This increases the risk of an accident, causing injury or death to vehicle occupants and other road users. That is the standard consequence framing that sits behind every serious recall in Australia. In practical driving terms, the car keeps steering, keeps braking, keeps accelerating normally. The failure mode is at rest, when the driver assumes the car has parked itself and it has not.

Anyone who has always been in the habit of shifting to Park and pressing the electric parking brake button manually every time before opening the door will never trip this failure. Auto park is a convenience layer sitting on top of that primary control, not a replacement for it.

Full list of affected Mercedes-Benz models

Nine model lines are captured across combustion, mild-hybrid, plug-in hybrid and full-electric powertrains, along with a large slice of the current Mercedes-AMG range. Below is the model-by-model breakdown as filed on the federal recall register.

The current-generation W206 C-Class and X254 GLC both appear, so this is not just a cleanup of older MFA1 compact-car stock. The A-Class hatch and sedan, the B-Class MPV and every current GLA and GLB body are in there too, as are the outgoing EQA (the electric twin of the old GLA that will be folded into the new-generation GLA range from 2027), and the newer CLE two-door coupe and cabriolet that replaced the C-Class Coupe.

Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) matters. Not every VIN in the 2018 to 2026 build window is affected. Mercedes-Benz Australia is contacting the owners of the individual cars on the list in writing, and the fastest way to check your own vehicle is to enter the 17-digit VIN into the recall check under Current Recalls at mercedes-benz.com.au, or on the government Vehicle Recalls REC-006695 page.

Image credit: Mercedes-Benz Australia

What owners should do

1. Wait for Mercedes-Benz to write to you, or check now. Mercedes-Benz Australia will contact the registered owner of every affected vehicle by mail. If you are the second or third owner and your registered address has changed since delivery, that letter may not reach you, so it is worth checking your VIN yourself either at mercedes-benz.com.au or on the government recall page.
2. Book the free repair when parts arrive. The fix is done at any authorised Mercedes-Benz dealer at no cost to the owner. Because the recall covers 58,822 vehicles, parts supply and dealer capacity will move in waves, so the earlier you book, the smoother the appointment.
3. Change your parking habit until the fix is done. The car remains safe to drive. What Mercedes is asking every affected owner to do in the interim is exactly what the owner's manual has always said: shift the gear selector to Park and press the electric parking brake button before opening the door. Do that manually every time and the auto park signal path never gets the chance to fail on you.
4. Park nose-in on slopes. Belt and braces while you are waiting. Turn the wheels toward the kerb if you are on a hill, so a car that does happen to roll gets caught by the wheel rather than rolling into the road.

Getting in touch with Mercedes-Benz Australia

The primary channels for this recall are the Mercedes-Benz Australia Customer Assistance Centre and any of the brand's authorised passenger-car dealers. Use the dealer locator on mercedes-benz.com.au to find your nearest workshop and book in. Bring your VIN. If Mercedes have already written to you, bring the letter as well, since it lists the specific campaign reference the dealer will use to look up the parts kit.

The federal recall page REC-006695 is the single source of truth for the model list, the campaign reference and the manufacturer notification date. If you need a public confirmation to hand a fleet manager or a novated-lease provider, that page is the one to link to. This recall is also expected to appear on the Mercedes-Benz Australia Current Recalls page under passenger-car services.

What this means for buyers on CarSorted

A recall this large landing on cars still on the price list is unusual, and it is worth reading in the context of what these Mercedes-Benz models cost against the CarSorted database rather than treating it as a Mercedes-only problem.

The current MFA2 CLA starts at $66,500 before on-roads for the CLA 180 mild hybrid and stretches to $91,300 for the CLA 350 4MATIC electric. Those are affected build years going forward. The current-generation GLC 400 electric at $112,200 before on-roads sits in the same recall family through its combustion 4MATIC sibling and the AMG grades above it. Both cars still make sense on paper, and the fix here is a warranty-covered dealer job on a small microswitch, not a structural issue. What it does do is add another point on the ownership checklist for anyone shopping the segment in the second half of 2026.

On the used side, the story matters more. If you were looking at an early BYD Seal, Audi Q6 e-tron or Polestar 3 versus a two-year-old EQA 250 as a plug-in step into a European brand, this is one to factor into the pre-purchase inspection. A Mercedes dealer can tell you on the VIN whether the recall work has been completed on that specific car. Do not accept a private-sale claim on trust. Get it in writing from a dealer before you hand the deposit over, and treat the recall history as part of the standard used-car negotiation checklist alongside service history and outstanding finance.

The bigger CarSorted lens on this recall is that it does not change any comparison. Recalls in Australia are performed free, do not affect the vehicle warranty and, once completed on a specific VIN, are done for the life of the car. It is the manufacturer paying to fix a defect it has already conceded rather than the buyer or a resale buyer wearing the cost. If the car you want is a BYD Seal, a Polestar 3, an Audi Q6 e-tron or a Mercedes-Benz CLA electric, the recall status of one candidate is not the deciding vote. Range, fast-charge time, cabin, driver assistance calibration and running-cost profile still do the heavy lifting.

Also worth calling out for anyone with a recent Mercedes on a novated lease. This recall does not alter the FBT exemption on any electric variant. It is a safety recall, not a homologation event. The EQA 250, EQA 250+ and EQA 350 4MATIC continue to sit under the fuel-efficient LCT threshold of $91,387, so they remain FBT-exempt on a novated lease exactly as they were the day before REC-006695 was published. If your salary packager pushes back on that, direct them to the federal recall page. The recall is a service action, not a change of vehicle status.

How this compares to recent Australian recalls

Volume-wise, this sits at the top end of the year. Toyota's bull-bar wiring recall on the HiLux from earlier this week captured 13,390 utes with a genuine bull bar or nudge bar fitted, and Cupra's electric power-steering software recall in May took in 920 vehicles across four models. The Mercedes-Benz recall is roughly four times the Toyota action and more than sixty times the Cupra one, but the failure mode is milder in day-to-day terms because the car does not lose the driving-related systems. It loses a convenience layer that most drivers can and should replace with two seconds of muscle memory in the meantime.

The other useful comparison is the same defect family overseas. Mercedes-Benz has issued a related door-lock recall in the United States and Canada earlier in 2026, and the Australian action closes the loop on that global program for locally-delivered cars. It is not a new problem discovered here; it is the tail end of the global rollout of the fix.

Cross-reads: Toyota HiLux bull-bar EPS recall | Cupra steering software recall | Search CarSorted's full car directory to cross-shop the CLA and GLC against every mid-size petrol, hybrid and electric rival on sale in Australia today.