For the handful of you who own a 2017 Mercedes-AMG G65, I have some bad news. The days of putting your V12 trucks into reverse and running over pedestrians are finished. I’m sorry to have to tell you this.
You see, NHTSA has caught on and issued a recall of 20 (yes, only 20) G65s. The affected vehicles have faulty ECU software that won’t stop them from exceeding 16 mph while in reverse.
It is unclear how fast you can go in reverse in one of these cars, but we find the question delightful and entertaining. We shot a message over to Mercedes about it, and will update when they respond, because the only way Dutch reverse racing videos would be better would be if it was all done by way of humongous, twin-turbo V12 Mercedes trucks.
Reverse gears aren’t designed to be these tall-ass gears that bring you to high speeds. They’re meant for very low speeds around parking lots and stuff. Still, though, we are very curious as to what maximum speeds the G65s could get up to until Mercedes decided that something was wrong.
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The recall notice states that vehicular rollover is the potential risk here, but we all know it’s because it was simply too easy to floor the gas while in reverse and roll right over your neighbor’s carefully trimmed hedges because his dog took a dump in your yard last month. It was too easy to commute to your private kickboxing lessons at the local Equinox completely in reverse.
I don’t know, an uninhibited reverse gear doesn’t sound like a defect to me. It sounds like a feature. And it only affects 20 cars! Let the fools who mistakenly bought a living dinosaur of a vehicle have their fun. Lord knows it wasn’t good for much else, although the new version should be better.
You can take a look at the rest of the report here.
Update 4:53 p.m.: A Mercedes spokesperson said in an email:
We are not aware of any incidents here in the U.S. so this is likely a precautionary measure for us, one that is quickly resolved with a coding change. Keep in mind that you’re talking about 20 affected vehicles total.
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