Mercedes E-Class saloon (2009-2016) - Reliability & safety

The Mercedes E-Class is a reliable car that’s well built and has a lot of safety equipment as standard, but servicing costs are relatively high.

Mercedes E-Class reliability

Mercedes cars are expensive, but they have an excellent reputation for reliability – something that appears to be confirmed by our 2016 Driver Power customer satisfaction survey. While the E-Class has slipped down the rankings slightly in recent years, coming 44th (out of 150 cars) in our latest poll, for a model that’s old enough to have now been superseded, this is a good result.

Safety

Safety is another Mercedes E-Class strong point and all models get a full complement of airbags, as well as electronic stability control, attention assistance (which warns you to take a rest if it detects drowsiness) and bright LED lights.

Unsurprisingly, the E-Class was awarded the maximum five stars when it was initially crash-tested by Euro NCAP. The car scored 86% for adult occupant protection, 77% for child occupant protection and a reasonable 59% for pedestrian protection. This is on par with its rivals, which are generally very safe, too (although the Jaguar XF only scored four out of five because of a poor child protection score).