Today I attended the June Jamboree held at MBUSA headquarters in Montvale, NJ. Sitting in the parking lot with manufacture plates was a brand new silver S-Class V8 DIESEL!, a S400 CDI. Unfortunately I didn't bring my digital camera, just the regular 35mm, so I don't have pictures to post. Trust me though, there was no mistaking S400 on one side of the trunk lid and CDI on the other.

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1999 MB SL500 (110,000 mi)
2004 Volvo V70 2.5T (220,000 mi)
2014 Tesla Model S 85 (136,000 mi)
MBCA member

rickjordan,

Did anyone mention whether or not the car was being brought in to the US for next year? Did you get a chance to ask some questions about Diesels for next year? Thanks, Jim

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Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

I spotted this S400 CDI on my way out. There were alot of company cars sitting in the parking lot. These weren't set up for display, just in the employee's parking area. Surprisingly MB didn't have any formal display of new product. As for future diesels, MB is bringing in the E-Class diesel CDI for 2004. There have been articles in various car magazines reviewing the car. One review was a cross country drive from California to Montvale, NJ. To quote the summary of that trip... "In all, we fiiled the E320 CDI's tank six times driving from the West Coast to the East Coast and still had three-quarter of a tank left when we gave the car back to Mercedes-Benz at their New Jersey headquarters. Discounting the final 200 miles we put onto the car to reach Montvale after the last fill-up, we went 3,023 miles using 78.49 gallons of diesel fuel at a cost of $128.96. For the entire trip, mostly on interstates, we averaged 38.5 mpg......."
This car by the way can do 0-60 in 7.7 seconds, has a top speed of 151 mph. The engine is a inline 6 with 4 valves per cyl and is turbo-charged. it has 200 horsepower and 369 lb-ft of torque from as low as 1800 rpm to 2600 rpm.
Just imagine what the numbers will be for that S400 CDI.

__________________
1999 MB SL500 (110,000 mi)
2004 Volvo V70 2.5T (220,000 mi)
2014 Tesla Model S 85 (136,000 mi)
MBCA member

Which magazine has the CDI review???

Yes, there is some really interesting stuff in thier parking lot. I've been there several times and have seen SMART cars, SL55 AMG's (before they were released), and a Maybach amoung other things. Don't let the security guards catch you taking pictures, it's prohibited.

I think it was Automobile magazine that had the review. Actually all the top magazines run the same articles on the same cars. It was also printed in the lates edition of the MBCA's club magazine, The Star. What they did is drive a European spec. 2003 E-class CDI. The 2004 E-Class CDI that they are bringing here, uses the same engine. Even thought these are still turbo-diesels, they are called CDIs. It stands for Common rail Diesel Injection.

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1999 MB SL500 (110,000 mi)
2004 Volvo V70 2.5T (220,000 mi)
2014 Tesla Model S 85 (136,000 mi)
MBCA member

Hate to be picky, but the D is for Direct. This is to distinguish them from the rest of us plebes who have prechambers, or Indirect injection.

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Rick Miley
2014 Tesla Model S
2018 Tesla Model 3
2017 Nissan LEAF
Former MB: 99 E300, 86 190E 2.3, 87 300E, 80 240D, 82 204D Euro
Chain Elongation References

I was under the impression the CDI designation stood for, Common Rail, Direct Injection, Intercooled. This is because of the German's use a single compound word for our two words, direct injection, and the engine is intercooled. Also, the designator "E" is the German letter that stands for "Einspritzen" which means injection.

Originally the "E" in XXXE or XXXSE, XXXCE, XXXSEL, and so on designated those cars as having fuel injection instead of carburetors. Diesels all had fuel injection so they never had to have a letter to distinguish fuel injected ones from any other kind.

The letter "E" took on another identity after all MB's that were produced to meet their Green Party environmental regulations, and US EPA regulations became 100% of the production. When that happened all the cars had an "E" designator, except "SL's" and some, like "S" Class cars had an extra letter. At that point the "E" came to designate the middle size car, mainly to distinguish it from the 190 series, which also sold with "E" designators (190E), and the letter designators were moved in front of the numerals.

I guess since all Diesels are now turbocharged, they do not feel the need to make that a special point with a fourth letter in the designator. Hope this helps, Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

Is the 400CDI the V8 diesel?

It sounds to be a very attractive combination of power and economy, but I am forced to ask how many years this engine has been in production, given that two of MB's recent diesel efforts - the 3 liter and 3.5 liter in-line sixes - were engineering catastrophes?

Yes, it's a twin turbo V8 Diesel. Here's the spec page on MB's worldwide site: S400 CDI

BTW, the 400 CDI is also listed in the E class, and makes 7 KW more power there. Yippee!!!

Oh, and I forgot to mention it has been in production for several years.

__________________
Rick Miley
2014 Tesla Model S
2018 Tesla Model 3
2017 Nissan LEAF
Former MB: 99 E300, 86 190E 2.3, 87 300E, 80 240D, 82 204D Euro
Chain Elongation References

What MB ought to do is put all the cars WE CANT GET on their mbusa.com website with big red letters across the page "NOT AVAILIBLE IN THE US". That would be the engineering department's solution. Then maybe we'd have some feedback from customer to gov't regulator.

Sholin

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What else, '73 MB 280 SEL (Lt Blue)
Daily driver: '84 190D 2.2 5 spd.

Wow!!! What a great thread. I am NJ all the time. Does anyone have the address to this MB headquarters. With a little help from Mapquest, I think I am going to cruz by sometime soon.

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1996 (W210) E300D 86K - Traded in for a Lexus
1992 (W124) 300D 2.5 Turbo 202K - Sold
1983 (W123) 300D, 146K - Sold
1970 280S, 263K - Sold - Beginning of addiction

It's way up near the new york state border, exit 172 off the garden state parkway (Montvale).

Here's the contact page with their address: MB USA

__________________
Rick Miley
2014 Tesla Model S
2018 Tesla Model 3
2017 Nissan LEAF
Former MB: 99 E300, 86 190E 2.3, 87 300E, 80 240D, 82 204D Euro
Chain Elongation References