Mercedes recalls one million older cars over braking issue

Carmaker says recall will begin immediately on affected models built between 2004 and 2015

Germany's federal transport authority said the recall affected the SUV series ML and GL, and the R-Class luxury minivan. Photo: AFP

German carmaker Mercedes-Benz is recalling nearly one million older vehicles worldwide owing to a potential problem with their braking system.

The country's federal transport authority said that the recall affected cars built between 2004 and 2015, of the SUV series ML and GL, and the R-Class luxury minivan.

"Corrosion on the brake booster can in the worst case lead to the connection between the brake pedal and the braking system being interrupted," the authority said in a statement dated June 1 and reported late on Saturday in German media.

"As a consequence, the service brake can stop functioning."

The authority said that 993,407 vehicles were being recalled worldwide, including about 70,000 in Germany.

Mercedes-Benz confirmed the recall later in a statement sent to AFP, saying the move was based on an "analysis of isolated reports for certain vehicles".

"In rare cases of very severe corrosion, it might be possible for a particularly strong or hard braking manoeuvre to cause mechanical damage to the brake booster, whereby the connection between brake pedal and brake system would fail," Mercedes said.

"In such a very rare case, it would not be possible to decelerate the vehicle via the service brake. Thus, the risk of a crash or injury would be increased."

The company said it would start with the recall immediately and contact the owners of the "potentially affected vehicles".

"The recall process will involve inspecting potentially affected vehicles and, depending on the results of the inspection, replacing the parts where necessary," it said.

"Until the inspection takes place, we ask our customers not to drive their vehicles."