Loubud

I'm speechless! I'll follow your recommendations to clean any carbon beyond that, I need to ponder this a bit. This just isn't right. The bio thing seems to be the root of evil here.
Back later. B.S. stuff to do.

Loubud

Vic,
I'm no longer speechless but still a bit stunned. That biodiesel did all of this and your State Reps unwilling to help I may have a solution for you but it won't be easy.

But 1st, here in CA we don't have the bio mixture. We had for a short time gas stations that had bio but it wouldn't sell. Like me, many folks tried it and stopped. Our '92 lost about 1/2 it's power and 10 mpg. It sucked. I suspect the others that tried it in their trucks and cars had bad results also hence the elimination of it.

Here's something you may be able to do keeping in mind that many of IL reps are liberal like here in CA. You own a Mercedes therefore you're an evil rich guy and can afford whatever costs you incur.

Not knowing your State's Constitution I don't know if you can try to get your county to pass a law to make the percentage of bio posted on pumps in your county. It's worth it for you to find out. If you can get that, then it's 1 county at a time from there, hoping for the domino effect.

A bit of research on their voting records may show those that will be sympathetic to your cause. If you can find other Mercedes owners that are or will be suffering from your problems it will be much easier to garner support from the county supervisors. Your MB dealer may help with locating them for you. Maybe. If not directly, your service writer may do it for you on the sly. He/she can talk to those with the bluetec and act as a middleman. The service writer Can use your car as an example of what they may/will face and ask if they would like to contact. If yes, he/she gives them your contact info. It's a lot of work and also requires you to do followups on a regular basis.

You can also hit the independent shops for help with the same game plan. You will hit resistance if you're not a customer so be prepared for that.

OH, OH, OH. One thing when dealing with elected officials, not all come up for reelection at the same time. Your secondary target are the ones coming up next. They want your vote. A nifty trick is to send 10 bucks to their campaign fund. It shows your support for them (true or not doesn't matter) that it shows you're willing to put your money where your mouth is. They do NOT want that 10 bucks going to someone else and figure you may spend more, a lot more, to defeat them if they don't help you. Can't have that so they will listen but may not do anything outside of vague promises. Keep notes on who you talk to, the date and time and what was said as best you can. You'll need them later.

MBUSA probably won't help you by giving you a list of who owns a bluetec. Confidentiality, etc. They aren't the easiest to deal with anyway. For example, I had to go through all kinds of machinations with the '95 E300D after 3, yep 3, rebuilt tranny's that just plain ole didn't work right. I finally got them to send their rep and mechanic to see for themselves and the rep had the 4th tranny installed. That tranny wasn't working right either but MBUSA was DONE. I had an independent shop do the final adjustments to get the besturd to shift correctly. That 4th tranny would shift so hard that the rear wheels chirped under normal acceleration.

The next MBUSA problem was with a 2007 R320 CDI. The pano roof failed repeatedly and it started blowing coolant through the exhaust. Mind you, that car was 1 1/2 years old and under 25K miles. They finally took it back under the lemon law.

Next up, a 2008 R320 CDI. I bought it at 7 mos. old and 17K miles as a CPO from an AutoNation dealer in Sarasota. JUNK. Carpet was trashed but you couldn't tell in the photos. The headlights couldn't be aligned as the same dealer put oversized 22" rims on it and moved a bunch of stuff behind and in front of the wheelwells. Over 10K to fix. It took me just over 3 mos. to force them to buy it back and refund my costs in toto. Shipping, tax, license, loan, etc. MBUSA not only did nothing, they claimed that their LICENSED Dealers were out of their control. I threatened a letter to Daimler.AG and still hit a wall. Pizzes me off to this day. The way I got the buyback accomplished was finding the executive secretary to the CEO of Autonation. One message on her answering machine and it was finally resolved. I never wanted to talk to the CEO Michael Crank as he was at one time the head honcho at MBUSA. I assumed he still had a lot of friends and a lot of pull since his dealers is the largest chain of new car dealers in the country. I escaped!

I hope that at least some of this helps. You might get some help from the Mercedes Car Club folks. If I can do anything, let me know.

VicLaw

Thank you for sharing. You have had an amazing history with MB. And still you’re an owner! If I were in your shoes I’d be writing this on the FIAT forum. My worse MB experience was a $2,500 evaporator replacement in an out of warranty S320.

Being in Illinois it will be difficult to “hurt” the farm bill, I may have a better chance getting the abortion laws revoked here. However, judging by the Senator’s and State Representative’s office workers faces they truly had no idea that a MB diesel was capable of 36 mpg let alone 45’s for the VW 4 banger. (I was told that the Senator drives a Telsa which he “just loves” (so would I if I could charge my car at the taxpayer expense at the office). So my plan is to leverage Green, fuel economy, and consumer protection. All I ask is let me know what I am buying, that is my complaint with the law as currently written.

I’m all for reducing pollution and conservation. But it must be reasonable. First they pass a law for low sulfur everyone re-engineers eliminating soot and NOx – all for it and I’ll pay a premium for the fuel. Then they change the fuel blend and I’m supposed to get less mileage and pay for repairs because it’s sustainable? PURE BS. Furthermore they want to buy votes with my TAX DOLLARS?

I’m impressed that biodiesel failed in CA on a marketing basis. Here the problem is the biodiesel bill was passed as a tax credit. But that does not mean that the consumer benefits from it. The pumps are labeled as 5 – 20 % biodiesel (a 2 inch square sticker). Chicago and Cook County add taxes to the price of all fuel. This week biodiesel prices, around me, vary from $4.79 to $4.29 with .39 and .29 being the majority. Now usually there is a .30 to .40 reduction in the suburbs across all grades. And it’s still true for gas prices but in the past month the independent suburban dealers are selling biodiesel for $3.66! I know that Chicago service stations have different expenses like property taxes, insurance and payroll. BUT, someone is taking advantage of the situation. Just what am I buying here or there? Even if you go into the station the counter people do not know and don't know where to look for the information. If the manager is there he'll look at the shipping invoice and one had to call the corp. office.

Now it happening in Minnesota (debating 11%) so it looks like if you grow corn or soybeans in your state it’ll happen to you. That makes us sustainable and feel good.

My thinking is to place pre-addressed letters in the shops asking for a law for % blend to be posted at stations. But I would like to see 3 to 4 other local diesel owners step up for the effort.

God save us from well intentioned politicians! Rant end.

Loubud

I still buy the MB as I need the MPG, reliable diesel and real comfy seats. And Elaine drives 48 miles each way with a large part of it on PCH. Makes for a nice drive but has a few nifty S curves. Pretty cool to take a nasty curve that's posted at 35 mph and take it at 65 without a worry in the world. So handling is good too.

On a bright note. Elaine actually hit 40.1 mpg averaging 56 mph the other day. She hit every light green otherwise she's between 34 and 36 mpg. Her face was lite up like a Christmas tree when she told me.

Your senator drives a Tesla? Nothing stranger than a car that looks like a Ferrari and makes no noise. Even the new Ferrari makes little noise with all the smog carp on it. Disturbing. I'll take an old one that spits out "bite me" through it's exhaust anytime.

We have the "free" charge stations here also. Pizzes me off that the tax payer pays these guys to drive.

Back to the bio. I think you're going about this correctly as I had thought you were either contacting by phone or email. I have experienced the same type of look when I tell folks about the mpg's this car gets. OOPS. Off track. Getting the dealers to help would be great and getting more Bluetec owners involved would be ideal. Strength in numbers thingy. Remember one thing about leaving letters for others to send to their reps. They need to use their own verbiage with yours as a guideline. Most politicians toss out mass mailings that are identical to others.

Here in CA, any credits are jumped on. The bio credit may be on it's way. Farming is what we do here along with Silicon Valley and other stuff. It's rather sad that Minn. is going to jump on it too. The worst part of this whole ordeal is supposedly free money along with the feel good laws that get passed. I know of no one that wants dirty air or water. I'm all for conservation as long as freedom isn't diminished. A simple posting on a gas pump isn't much to ask. OK, you pay more for less bio. How hard is that to contemplate?

OH, just had a thought. Your souvenir. You may want to take that with you the next time to talk to some official. Let them see for themselves the damage the high mixture of bio is doing. Should be as startling as the looks you received with the mpg these cars get. You might want to print out pictures to go along with the letters to other owners stating "you're next" or something along those lines.

If you can't get this bio thing resolved, what will you do? As a long time Benz owner, I'd regret selling mine but would. Elaine doesn't like small cars and has a very bad back so I have no clue as what to replace them with. Plus we have a large dog we travel with. A 202 lb. English Mastiff. He takes up a bit of space.

As far as longevity of this car, I don't think it will hit the 500K miles as the norm like my '95. I do think it will hit 300K without too much maintenance expense but ya never know. With all of the goodies they have now I wonder what fails first? The motor or the electronics?

Once you have a letter, can you send it to me? I'd like to see it.

Thanks.
Lou

VicLaw

We pay for their "fuel", discounted city stickers, reserved parking (by the charging stations), tax break for the initial purchase and they skip out on paying road taxes by using electricity. But now the politicians are starting to cry about the road tax revenue losses - they are going to tax us based on the GPS info - that's coming - bet on it.

I'm going to look for others owners at the Illinois Biodiesel question thread here. But I think politicians pay attention to any calls, letters or emails today Americans are so complacent that it is ridiculous. So anytime we squawk they sit up and listen. Now getting them to act...

Yes, I'm going to take the part and show them but I'm just afraid that if one of the young workers tell me "That is the price we have to pay to save the planet." I will bludgeon them with the part and end up staring on "Cops" segment in my MB T shirt.

My wife is a lot smaller than your dog (I'm not) but she too likes comfort. All other SUV we tried drive like trucks. Only the ML and GL ride like cars. Haven't tested a Lexus - wife won't let me. Only reason we are looking to move into the ML is because we believe it is better for long distance travel that we are planning. I'd hate to give up the mpg and go back to gas.

Hate to say it but, I'm hoping that more people have problems with biodiesel so they solve this - one way (blends) or the other (engineering).

Thanks for your suggestions and interest.

Loubud

We have them pitching a beach about gas taxes here also. In N.Y. city, they wanted a fee of $25 per bicycle to use the roads. Here we have formerly 4 lane roads reduced to 2 lane roads. Yep, 1 lane each way for bikes. Traffic is horrendous because of all those bikes. I should note that there were are are not enough bikes out there to believe this was a good idea.

In El Ay, if a bike rider is in the middle of the road, blocking traffic, it is a traffic ticket if anyone in a car honks, yells, comments, etc. to that rider. Worse, many of these besturds kick your door panels in and still you can't say anything that may be construed as harassment.

CA now wants to charge a fee to use car pool lanes, charge car owners by the mile, and raise the gas taxes.

Starting with 2015 model year cars, a black box is required by the Fed. It tracks where you go, when you go, if you idle the car, turn a wheel and sends all of it to some bureaucracy in the name of "monitoring safety". I'm starting to like those '60-70's cars more and more.

The 1st time I contacted my member of Congress I was scared to death. Fortunately I had an exceptional memory and a good command of the English language. I also had a strange ability to see what I called "the fatal flaw" in bills working it's way through congress and I used to read them all. The fatal flaw is also called "unintended consequences". I called, ask for the person in charge of the bill in question, stated my case and hung up. Whew! Made it. My congressguy voted NO and he did a bunch to get bill tossed.

But that was before I became ill. You can see that I now ramble and can't write short blunt, to the point responses. Elaine now has to edit anything that goes to an official. I can edit others but not myself. SUX and pizzes me off but we play the cards were dealt.

I learned back then that 1 out of 10,000 people actually contacted their reps. My calling a rep a petty bureaucratic snake is like 10,000 people calling him/her that. COOL. BTW, never ever swear. It allows them to never have to speak to you again in any form. Phrase your words force ably but respectably. The snake thing is ok but should be avoided if possible.

I think that 10K number, while from the '90's may still apply. You don't need a majority of voters in your area. You don't need 1/3 either. A dozen or so may be all you need. Historical data shows that 1/3 of the populace can change the course of America. They need to be well spoken and know of what they speak and be very vocal. A dozen people in 1 reps area may do wonders. Those Bluetec owners that you're able to contact need to know this.

For us, since the '92 300SD is on it's last legs and the '95 is now a rust bucket and will be gone within a year, our second car may be the MB wagon. It won't be new as we can't afford a new one which is why I buy used ones. It doesn't matter if you read Road and Track or other mags, the MB seats can't be beat. There's a company out here that sells seats that fit BMW's that are like MB's for $10K each. Road test after road test comparisons by magazine guys generally admit that when it comes right down to brass tacks, that for long distance driving you can't beat a Benz. Very little driver fatigue and that's without dynamic, heated, cooled and massaging seats. Geez, I'd really like those in my E.

I may get a Jeep Grand Cherokee. I haven't driven one so I don't know how the seats are but it's on my list. I have a small enclosed trailer I would like to tow and am uncertain about putting one on the newer E. It can tow but if it responds like the 2007 R320 CDI, the diesel can't take it. That car is heavy enough to begin with and the trailer, while rated for mebee 2K lbs. never had any real weight in it but the diesel started blowing coolant in short order. A V8 Jeep won't.

Good luck with the other owners. Hopefully they will be willing to save their car from expensive repairs.