Mercedes EQC review: reliability & safety rating

Euro NCAP awarded the EQC a five-star official safety rating and Mercedes is confident enough in the car’s safety standards to have released videos and details from its own crash tests, too. Active brake assist, lane departure warning and blind spot assist are all standard on the EQC.  

Mercedes EQC reliability & problems

It’s hard to comment on the reliability of the EQC at this point. It shares much of its architecture with the Mercedes GLC, but its powertrain is a largely unknown quantity at the moment and company executives aren’t willing to estimate how many cycles (where the battery is charged and discharged) the 80kWh pack will do before any significant loss of performance. However, the eight-year warranty includes a guarantee that Mercedes will replace or refurbish the batteries if they drop below 70% of their as-new performance. 

While that might give EQC owners peace of mind, the brand’s disappointing 23rd-place finish in the 2022 Driver Power Owner satisfaction survey may not. Mercedes was outperformed by all of its premium rivals in the run-down, including Audi, BMW, Jaguar and Lexus. A significant 27.3% of owners reported a fault in the first year, and feedback suggests customers remain unimpressed when it comes to running costs, as well as comfort, ride and handling. The EQC has the potential to rectify a few of those flaws, however, thanks to its excellent refinement, as well as its ability to slash fuel bills if you’re able to charge at home.

Safety

The EQC comes with a full array of airbags and parking sensors, as well as a reversing camera, blind-spot assistance, autonomous emergency braking, lane-departure warning and LED headlights as standard. As such, the EQC performed very well in independent Euro NCAP crash-testing, securing the maximum five-star rating and a near-perfect 96% score for adult occupant protection. It also scored 90% for child occupant protection, 75% for pedestrian protection and 75% for safety assistance.