Melanie and Dan Cotton says they will have to foot the bill to repair their car, despite the fault leading to a recall of other models in the past
Melanie Cotton’s husband Dan was driving their Mercedes-Benz EQC 400 with their children Charlie and Poppy inside when the brakes stopped working(Image: Supplied)
A mum says her car is being held “ransom” by Mercedes-Benz after the brakes failed while her husband was driving. In February 2024, Melanie Cotton bought a Mercedes-Benz EQC 400 electric car, which was nearly three years old.
The cost of the car was £38,037, with Mel paying £540 a month for it on a hire purchase agreement. On November 8 2025, Mel’s husband Dan was driving their Mercedes-Benz with their children Charlie and Poppy inside. When they were approaching a set of temporary traffic lights by the Murphy engineering site in the Golborne area of Wigan, the brakes suddenly stopped working.
Thankfully, Dan was able to bring the electric car to a halt gradually. Three months later, it was discovered that the brake failure was caused by a blocked sunroof drain, which caused water to get into the car.
Water ingress is a known defect on this model that led to recalls in 2021. Mel, 36, who is from Newton-le-Willows, believed this issue would be covered by her warranty, which runs until May 2026. However, this is not the case, meaning she is facing a hefty repair bill of over £17,000, which Mercedes will not cover.
She has now stopped her monthly payments because they no longer have access to the hire car they were using. Warrington Mercedes did initially cover the charges for the hire car, but this ended because they have not been authorised to start repairing her original vehicle.
Mel, who now lives in Wigan, is now sharing her husband’s work van to get around. She is outraged that the issue with the EQC was not picked up by the Warrington Mercedes-Benz dealership when they have serviced the car previously.
MotoNovo Finance, the car finance firm the couple bought the car from, have also refused them a refund. Mel has now taken the issue up with the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Poppy Cotton pictured by their Mercedes-Benz EQC 400(Image: Supplied)
A spokesperson for Mercedes-Benz told the ECHO there are “no active recall campaigns” regarding this issue and said it cannot influence decisions made by MotoNovo Finance.
A MotoNovo spokesperson said that the burden rests with the customer at this stage to pay the repair costs and there is no independent evidence confirming the car had a defect when it was sold.
Mel, who works as a nurse in Warrington, claims it is unfair. She told the ECHO: “On November 8 2025 our Mercedes EQC 400 (reg ME12COT) suddenly lost all brakes while my husband was driving with our children in the car.
“It was terrifying for him but quick thinking being a former Royal Marine he put the car into full regeneration and used his whole body weight on the brake pedal to slowly bring the car to a stop, thank God I wasn’t driving when this happened.
“The car was still under warranty. Yet Mercedes-Benz of Warrington diagnosed severe water ingress through the sunroof seals – the exact fault covered by Mercedes safety recall 5491504.
“The wiring loom and control units were underwater. Mercedes UK has now admitted in writing it is a “component failure”, but Mercedes Warrington have kept the car ransom unless we pay their £17,569 repair bill and [more for] three investigations and wster ingress reports.”
In 2021, motoring outlets such as Car Expert and Auto Evolution reported that water was entering EQC models through the power steering system, leading to power steering failure. However, recent posts on numerous online forums show drivers of EQC models still complaining about water ingress on their cars.
Mel has questioned why the issue was not noticed during the regular services the car has had at the Mercedes-Benz Warrington dealership, including one service which took place just two days after the brakes failed.
Mel said: “(In) January, Dan had a meeting face to face with this manager at Mercedes Warrington. He agreed that there were errors with the vehicle. They’d done the water test at this point and they’d found that the sun roof seal was blocked and it had basically ruined all the underneath wiring looms.
“It has regular services at Mercedes Warrington, they’re meant to check the sunroof. So why has that not been done?
Mum Melanie and her son Charlie Cotton in their Mercedes-Benz EQC 400(Image: Supplied)
“When the car went in on November 10, it had a service that day. How have they not found anything wrong with the sunroof? It’s taken until January basically to find out the actual issue with the vehicle, and then they’re trying to say, yeah, it is a £17,500 bill.
“So I did everything. I contacted the finance company. I opened a case and he asked me to get an independent engineer to go out to Warrington Mercedes, to do their own separate report, so they provided two different garages that they recommend you use.
“So I rang them both, and both the guys who I spoke to said that’s not something that they could do, purely because the car was already two, nearly three years old when I bought it, but also I’ve had it for two years, so there’s no way anyone could go out and prove that fault was there at the point of sale.
“And then one of the garages actually said, however, it is a known fault on EQCs that this happens, so ring your finance company back and tell them that no garage is going to do what they’re asking.”
Mel also criticised what she described as the “poor communication” from Mercedes throughout this dispute and says she has faced obstacles to resolve this issue at every turn.
Mel said: “The insurance won’t pay out as the car hasn’t undergone extreme weather or been crashed into a river. They also responded saying that as the car has been fully serviced at Mercedes and under warranty, it’s a mechanical issue and Mercedes should cover it.
“Our finance company MotoNovo has issued a final refusal to refund us under the Consumer Rights Act and will only allow voluntary termination. This means we would lose the entire £30,000 we have already paid (deposit plus all monthly payments to date) and still end up with no car at all. The car has now been stuck at the dealership for up to five months.
“I rely on this car every day for work. I’m basically paying for a car over £500 a month that’s not fit for purpose. We’ve now gone to the Financial Ombudsman because that was the next step that we were advised to do and we’re just waiting. It’s just a big shambles.”
Mel is outraged that the issue was not picked up by the Warrington Mercedes-Benz dealership when they serviced the car(Image: Supplied)
When the ECHO approached Mercedes-Benz, a spokesperson said: “We are sorry to learn of Ms Cotton’s experience with her 2020 Mercedes-Benz EQC. A detailed technical inspection by Mercedes-Benz of Warrington confirmed the cause of the issue was a blocked sunroof drain, which resulted in water ingress and consequent damage to some electrical components.
“We can confirm there are no active recall campaigns relating to this issue. However, since the issue occurred in November 2025, Ms. Cotton has had the use of a hire car at Mercedes-Benz of Warrington’s expense.
“Unfortunately, given the age of Ms. Cotton’s EQC, it is no longer covered by the three-year manufacturer’s warranty. And, regrettably, water ingress and associated damage is not covered under the terms of Ms. Cotton’s used car warranty, which was taken out when the EQC was purchased from outside the Mercedes-Benz network in 2024.
“Rejection of the EQC must be addressed by MotoNovo Finance as the vehicle hirer/owner. Mercedes-Benz UK is unable to persuade or influence decisions made by MotoNovo Finance. Ms Cotton may wish to escalate MotoNovo Finance’s decision to the Financial Ombudsman Service.”
A MotoNovo spokesperson said: “The reported issue arose some 20 months into the deal, and after considerable mileage accrued, consistent with normal consumer usage rather than an early-life failure. This places it well outside the period where liability would ordinarily be presumed under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
“Our handling has been aligned to the approach we would expect in these circumstances. We reviewed the complaint, understanding the customer’s distress and doing our utmost to provide a fair and accurate final decision.
“We explained that the evidential burden rests with the customer at that stage, invited independent engineering evidence with a contribution towards cost (£250), and signposted the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service, where it now awaits adjudication.
“At present, there is no independent evidence confirming an inherent point of sale defect, nor that any referenced recall applies to this specific vehicle.
“We’re confident that MotoNovo’s handling is procedurally sound and regulator-aligned. Our approach has been fully consistent with FCA expectations and established FOS case-handling principles. We await the FOS’ final decision.”
A spokesperson for the Financial Ombudsman confirmed the complaint is being investigated.
