Mercedes-Benz built the electric G-Wagen to do tank turns, blast from zero to 60 in under four seconds, and conquer terrain that would break lesser trucks. It just forgot to make sure the wheels stayed on.
The automaker is recalling all 3,734 units of the 2025 G580 with EQ Technology in the United States after internal testing revealed the wheel bolts could loosen or detach entirely while driving. The root cause is almost comically straightforward: engineers carried over the same wheel bolts from the combustion-powered G-Class without accounting for the electric version’s substantially greater mass and torque output.
That’s 579 horsepower and 859 pound-feet of torque from four hub motors, channeled through hardware designed for a lighter, less powerful truck. The bolts never stood a chance.
According to documents filed with NHTSA under recall campaign 26V198, Mercedes conducted an internal analysis between September 2024 and January 2025 that confirmed the mismatch. The company found that under severe driving conditions combined with repeated wheel changes over the vehicle’s life, the connection between bolt and hub could degrade to the point of failure.
Mercedes insists the scenario is “unlikely to occur under real-world operating scenarios” and would most likely show up late in the vehicle’s lifespan. The company reports zero warranty claims, zero field complaints, zero crashes, and zero injuries tied to the defect. That’s fortunate, but it doesn’t erase the engineering oversight.
A truck marketed on its ability to perform extreme maneuvers was sent into the world with wheel bolts that couldn’t handle extreme maneuvers.
The affected vehicles were built between February 26, 2024, and August 19, 2025. Models produced after August 26, 2025, already come equipped with the redesigned replacement hardware — a two-piece spherical collar bolt engineered to maintain consistent friction at the contact surface and reduce wear during tightening. That’s the part every recalled truck will receive, free of charge, at authorized dealerships.
Dealers were officially notified on April 3. Owner notification letters go out by May 22. Anyone who doesn’t want to wait can call Mercedes-Benz USA at 1-800-367-6372.
The electric G-Wagen starts at roughly $160,000 and climbs from there. For that kind of money, you get quad motors, a fortress of luxury, and the promise that Mercedes applied its full engineering rigor to every component. Except the wheel bolts, which were borrowed from the parts bin without a second thought about what 859 pound-feet of twist does to a connection point designed for considerably less.
This isn’t a software glitch or a sensor calibration issue — the kind of teething problems that have become almost routine in the EV era. This is a fundamental mechanical mismatch between a drivetrain and the fasteners holding the wheels to the vehicle. Mercedes caught it in durability testing rather than on a highway, and the company moved proactively. Credit where it’s due.
But the fact that the G580 made it through development and into production with carryover bolts that weren’t validated for its unique powertrain loads raises a question Mercedes would rather not answer: what else got carried over without a fresh look? The combustion G-Class has been refined over four decades. The electric version borrows its icon status and its silhouette. It shouldn’t have borrowed its wheel bolts.
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