Car makes an unusual, loud, humming noise from the rear of the car, upon starting and constantly, no matter the speed. On occasion, there is no noise, but more often than not, the humming is present. The noise emanates from the rear of the car, and can be heard on the interior and from the outside. Have brought the car into dealership 3X for the issue, and they claim they cannot duplicate the problem, and claim there is nothing wrong. It has been happening for the last 10K miles. Have also experienced the gas smell issue since 35K miles, and lost the brakes randomly; both issues described by others.

- Stamford, CT, USA

I own a Mercedes-Benz E500 bought new in 2004. 3 days ago I was driving the vehicle at about 35 miles an hour and car stalled and came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road with no warning. I could not start the engine back for about 5 minutes. Luckily there were no other vehicles behind me, which would have hit me from behind. I later towed the car to the Mercedes service station. They reported it as an electircal failure due to failing of the crankshaft position sensor. They have replaced the faulty sensor and the car is running ok now. I am still wondering why did the car come to an abrupt stop and did not allow me to coast the car to the side of the road, which should have been the backup safety mechanism in a failure like this to avoid a major accident. I am worried whether there is a design fault in this vehicle that did not allow that back up mechanism to kick-in. My service advisor says this fault is unlikely to recur. I feel that the sensors can fail at any time and the vehicle should have a safety mechanism to avoid abrrupt stops like this. If I was on a free way this would have created a major accident with so many vehicles piled up on top of me! my car has done only 40,000 miles within the last 4 years. It has new tires, a new battery and new brakes -all taken care of by the Mercedes dealer at my last service about 2 weeks ago.

- Miami, FL, USA

Transmission problems, vehicle would not shift out of park position to reverse or drive. The plastic piece attached to the fender was loose and the tire was rubbing the plastic. There was an oil leak which had come from the pan in the engine. When the consumer went to change the tire, he discovered there was no spare tire in the vehicle.

- Riverside, CA, USA