bdelong36

Thought we might use this thread to exchange information related to GLK 250 emissions testing. With DEF system, and hopefully MB executives with integrity in place, hope this is a complete non-issue for us.



Love our diesel and so disappointed in VAG for what they did to set the diesel movement back in the US?


Has anyone seen any actual testing on MB diesels?

Bmw1M

I have not heard of any testing on the GLK 250 but I also hope MB did not cheat. We had a 2010 Jetta TDI that we had transmission issues with but loved the engine and gas mileage, but glad we got rid of it a few years ago. I fell sorry for current owners of the TDI. I do think it has hurt Diesel cars in the US and it might affect the resale value of ours which we just purchased 3 weeks ago....I wish I would have waited as I might have got a better deal.

fabbrisd1

Kindof a checkle - "diesel movement in the US"..

MB is fine - more than fine - the system VAG would not adopt when they have a choice is SCR - DEF is mandated for all diesels going forward..

Diabolis

Er - for what it's worth, even the "cheating" VAG cars all pass the emissions testing with flying colors. It's only when they are *not* actually being tested that they spew out 40x the allowed amount of NOx.

AFAIK all of the affected cars identified so far utilize the EA189 2.0L, 4-cylinder TDI engine WITHOUT the urea injection system. The cars that use urea injection (DEF / AdBlue) all seem to be fine.

I know of a few MB Bluetec cars and SUVs that have changed hands in the past couple of years, and they all passed Ontario emissions just fine. Then again, so did a friend's 2012 Jetta TDI with the affected engine. I think that was the whole point of the cheat - make 'em pass when they are being tested.

formerjeepguy

There is a lot of conflicting info out there, but even the cars with urea injection are affected. My 2014 TDI Passat has urea injection and is on the list.

Diabolis

Intersting. Does your car use the EA 189 motor? It could be something in that particular engine ECU then - although I would think that if someone went through the trouble of adding an expensive NOx exhaust after-tratment system, it would seem pointless to resort to a software cheat.

symphony

When I previously owned a 2009 Jetta TDI, the emissions test in Ontario was simply a visual inspection for opacity? I don't think they connected anything to the OBD port to check for any emissions related error codes? Is anyone in Ontario familiar with the current Drive Clean emission testing procedure for light passenger diesel vehicles? Don't need one for the GLK yet but would be interesting to see the results.

formerjeepguy

I believe it is a CKRA.

Diabolis

Interesting... and you are right, it appears that some EA288 engined cars are affected as well. The CKRA motor is somewhere in between these two (see dieseldub's post at http://jalopnik.com/there-s-a-bit-of...ssu-1732385141 and then scroll to the top to read the article itself).

While I doubt that the end users who bought these cars would be directly affected by VWs actions in any way, it is absolutely inexcusable for a company to cheat like this. I mean, I could understand if this was the result of an honest mistake or error, but VW knowingly trying to pull a scam like this is outright deplorable.

formerjeepguy

There is now news of how they intend to fix the VWs with SCR and urea injection with speculation that it will require much more frequent DEF fill ups and decreased economy, performance.

From what I have seen and experienced the GLK 250 had a similar DEF consumption rate to the Passat. While it is too early to see the actual VW consumption rate after they fully enable the emissions systems, it leads me to question how Mercedes maintains the low DEF consumption rate with a slightly larger engine.

bdelong36

OP Here….
Thanks to all for the quick tech update on SCR vs DEF.
I will breathe easier (no pun intended) when regulators on two continents hook up the sniffers to our GLK 250s and put them through several cycles of real world testing.
I am attached to every one of our 369 lbs of foot torque and don’t want to give up anything to some software patch!

GLKpaul

I heard the London and Paris have plans to ban diesels in the not so distant future, the VW cheat has certainly set diesels back again, thinking of all those chrysler gas blocks retrofitted to diesel and sumarilly blowing up from there pressure every 40 thousand..... I think an entire generation of buyers steered clear after that..

I wish every car made a diesel model... Hooked on torque and gas mileage...

107123210

Does sound like all diesels including our GLKs will come under closer scrutiny. Just hope MB didn't do anything stupid. We like our GLK250! With 7 or 8 years of emissions warranty, MB will have to make good anyway on any deficiencies.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/volk...nded-1.3253798

LesF

Clean air is important

I'm not too worried about my 250 passing emissions checks as we don't have any in Florida but I am concerned that the regulatory climate will change. If they test diesels then all cars and trucks both gas and diesel should be tested, especially those idiots with the rolling coal modifications.

Diabolis

^ This.

107123210

Saw this on net - The vultures are ready:

http://www.germancarfraud.com/?gclid...SIXRoCRu3w_wcB

and this:

https://global.handelsblatt.com/edit...issions-tricks

Diabolis

This is the thread on this board (https://mbworld.org/forums/new-m-cla...sel-cheat.html) and the link to the article:

http://www.autoblog.com/2016/02/18/m...usauto00000015

What the lawsiut alleges (https://www.hbsslaw.com/uploads/case..._complaint.pdf) is that the cars produce more pollution when they're cold - which is the case with 100% of all internal combustion cars on the market, no matter who they are made by and what they use for fuel. It's a completely BS nuisance lawsuit, filed by "the same legal firm serving as lead counsel for plaintiffs in several lawsuits regarding fatal flaws in General Motors ignition switches.".

107123210

The interesting thing to me, is why the NOx emission system is turned off when the outside temperature is below 50F/10C. The chemical reactions would be affected by temperature. However, heaters are, I understand, provided to control reaction/catalyst temperatures. So you would think, that the emission system would be re-activated once the exhaust temperature reached a certain level.
Don't know where the temperature sensor is, but if it is ambient temperature, it doesn't make a lot of sense. That is, unless the heater system is unable to control the reaction temperatures at less that 10C. Given these car are built in Europe and sold in many cold climates, that would not seem plausible.
DEF doesn't freeze until temperatures are much lower (-11C). It may be difficult to spray at low temperatures, but 10C is a long way from -11C.
I am sure MB have an explanation. It will be interesting to hear what it is.

Diabolis

Exactly... but if you read the alleged case, they are piling up the runny excrement about "cleanliness", "leaders in environmental friendliness" and all the other MB marketing jargon they could possibly find so deep that you can't even reach up and touch bottom, yet there is NO HINT WHATSOEVER whether they mean 50 F ambient or 50 F engine, and critically, whether it's during the entire operation of the vehicle or only at startup. This is a clear case of "let's throw as much $h!t at the wall and see if anythign sticks". Any engine on a cold start if going to emit 50x the pollutants that it does when everything gets up to temp.

While it is true that the DEF urea-water mix freezes at -11C, the newer Benzes have a heater for this very purpose. Yes, if you parked the car overnight in Winterpeg Canada at -35C it could freeze, but then again there is a DEF heater in the newer models so that by the time the engine gets up to temperature where the NOx gasses can start to react with the urea in the DEF, the DEF fluid itself if also fully thawed and pumpable. So - yes, in theory, when you first start the car below some predetermined temperature, the emissions aftertreatment system does not work yet - but neither do the catalytic converters on gasoline powered cars. If that is the basis of their lawsuit, then every single car in the world from every manufacturer with an internal-combustion engine is affected, so it's a frivolus lawsuit at best. However, a rich car maker in litigation-happy USA is always a nice target for fleecing, so why not have a go at them and see if they can get a few bucks out of the deal?

The ONLY thing that's perfectly clear is that the lawers will be ones laughing on their way to the bank regardless of the outcome.

107123210

Further reading confirms a couple of things:
- It is below ambient temperature of 10C when emission system is always turned off
- Nothing to do with cold start ups.

The problem appears to be due to way EGR recirculation works. More in this link:
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/in...-nox-criticism

Clear that Daimler have not cheated on testing, but they have been lax in making this 10C disable "feature" known. We drive our car at below 10C about 75% of the time.

Hard to imagine what a fix could be - maybe not drive our cars when temperature drops below 10C Not good in Canada! Maybe ship them to warmer climes?

bop11

Didn't have that problem in the old days. My 1976 300 D and 1980 300SD wouldn't start when it got down below 0°C unless you had the circulating heater and battery blanket running. Then you didn't worry about driving those cars with the engine cold.
Progress!

Diabolis

I hadn't read that particular article, but it does shed some more light on the issue. However, higher real-world diesel emissions are not anythign specific to MB - it affects diesels from all manufacturers. See the following two articles for the list of cars now under the microsocope and how they fare:

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...ons-tests-show

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...-emissions-row

While it is a far cry from cheating and the VW dieselgate scandal, I have to agree that to the average layman the marketing is somewhat deceptive, but not unlike, say, fuel efficiency measurements. No one in the real world can achieve the low fuel consumption levels that are regularly advertised, because those are conducted under ideal atmospheric and closed-circuit conditions while it takes the testing robot 47 seconds to accelerate from 0 to 40 km/h with tires inflated to 52 psi whille travelling in a straght line and hitting every single green light for 4 km in a row. So - while it may be misleading to the general pubic, it is not in violation of the laws and regulations, which explicity state under what specific conditions any given vehicle has to meet said emission regulations. Now that the general public is aware of the VW fiasco and knows about diesel emissions, it's in the public spotlight and journalists are digging deeper and testing all of them to see what they can dig up becaus it sells papers (well, these days mostly electrons but you get my meaning). While everyone is all up in arms about diesels and NOx, we seem to have temporarly forgotten that carbon monoxide (CO) emissions - the stuff the kills you if you run your car in a closed garage for example - is up to 25x higher from gasoline powered vehicles than it is from diesels. They sell CO detectors at every hardware store, but I have yet to find a NOx detector for wide-use commercial sale anywhere.

I suspect that in the case of MB a potential fix - should one be required - would be very easy and without a performance or fuel consumption implications. All they would have to do in order to meet the emission standards under ALL conditions - not just those specified in the test - is to reprogram the EGR to open up at lower temperatures (the EGR reduces the oxygen in the cylinders to "starve" any reactions that would produce NOx). What this could potentialy affect is the longevity of the emission aftertreatment system, which currently has to (and usually does) last for 160K km before repairs are needed - but seeing as cars sold in Floria or California almost always get ambeint temperatures higher than 10C and the emission aftertreatment systems there are no different from those on cars sold in the rest of NA, it is somewhat puzzling as to why they would deactivate the EGR only at lower ambient temperatures. The DEF freezing point is obviously not at issue here - it is the EGR.

An intersting story about issues with the MB aftertreatment system is in a LinkedIn writeup by someone with a Sprinter fleet - see https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fatal...-tom-robertson. He states that at over 100,000 miles the vehicles require a fair bit of maintenence (which incidentally puts them just over the mandated 160,000 km system longevity), so I suspect that MB selectively turning it off is about potential resale values later on, but that still doesn't explain potential issues with vehicles sold in warmer climates. And, another internesting tidbit is that the MOST WIDESPREAD MOD on all MB diesels is EGR delete / disable - people defeat the system on purpose knowing full well that it increases NOx emissions. Just Google "mercedes egr delete" and see the number of hits you get.

The NA lawsuit mentioned is IMHO a non-starter as "clean" and "environmentally friendy" are not quantitative measurements, and Hagens Berman is exaclty the kind of law practice that "what-do-you-call-1,000,000-dead-lawyers-at-the-bottom-of-the-sea" type jokes are about... but while MB didn't technically cheat and all their vehicles meet the regulations as required, at the end of the day it would affect the vehicle longevity, or, rather the amount of $$$ one would need to spend on repairs after the warranty runs out. I guess what it means for us MB diesel owners is that we need to get rid of our cars when the 4-year factory warranty runs out.

107123210

I found another quotation from Daimler. It seems the problem has to do with the egr and it's affect on the inter or Egr cooler when temperatures drop. They also said they need to ensure the emission systems have the required 160k km life.

Possibly sub 10C air could cause condensation when mixed with exhaust gases and this would form acids when combined with NOx or SOx that could attack the cooler. Maybe they need to change out the intercoolers? Titanium or a special nickel chromium alloy might work.

My GLK250 has a 7yr warranty and maybe 8 yrs on emission system? Maybe Mercedes would give me a new GLC gasser if I complained enough

bop11

One problem with EGR and diesels is that EGR lowers the temperature in the cylinder due to the exhaust gasses being un-combustible and therefore reducing the fuel charge. With a compression fire engine, lowering the temperature in the combustion chamber can only proceed to a point at which combustion may not actually initiate. Spark fired engines do not have this problem as the plug will fire even if the apparent displacement is reduced by the EGR volume. So there is a limit to the effectiveness of the EGR to reduce NOx.