inspector, wonder if nuking small countries will help our air quality more than 30 second start up
of pumping a small amount of air into exauast manifold? bet you a 47 plymouth hubcap that two seconds of a coal fired power plant puts out more polutions than all the pumpless MB's in the world..........
William Rogers.......

no no Mr. Rogers, you have it all wrong, air pollution isn't big business' fault, its ours! Its ok if our country runs off of coal power and the factory next door doesn't meet kyoto standards, you must save the environment for your children!

Mr. Rogers, Badinfo,

So tell me, do you have electricity in your homes? If so, then your usage is what keeps the coal fire elec. plants fired up. If you are 100% solar electric powered, as my house is, then you are part of the solution.

It is arcaic thinking such as yours that have caused crowded freeways, poverty, wars etc etc.

However, your ploy to divert from the real issue I addressed, the disconnection of an air pump, is transparent. I stand by my previous opion concerning this issue. Disconnecting, unplugging or removing a part of any mechanical device is not a "fix" it is what someone does who cannot figure out what is really wrong with it. Personnaly, I dont care what you do.

When I first started veiwing this web site,I thought it was devoted to intelligent solutions for real problems that MB owners encounter, about 98% of it is.The rest is shade tree mechanic "fixes".

Two more comments, then I'll shut up,
1.you mentioned the pollution caused by the 3 minute start up without the pump and how thats not much, well that is sound thinking , if yours is the ONLY car in the USA, however, with 640 MILLION cars in the US as of 1996, yeah, disconnected air pumps ARE an issue.
2. Argueing with an inspector is like watching a hog wallow in the mud, pretty soon, you figure out he likes it.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Dear inspector:

I wonder how someone relying totally on solar power ends up buying a car with a 3 liter engine… wouldn’t a smaller engine (~1000 c.c.) better fit your profile and concerns? What about using public transportation, electrical engine vehicles, hybrid vehicles, …

Please don’t interpret me wrong. I just find your line of reasoning/ behavior inconsistent. I’m also worried about environment. I guess I’m just not so worried as you are…
Merry Christmas

Well, my Benz passed the IM 240 emissions test with .1 grams/mile HC, 1.5 g/mile CO and .8 g/m Nox, due to proper maintenance and low miles 87K.
Public Transport in St. Louis? what a joke! yeah sure if you live in the city and want to go to the mall, besides I live 24 miles from work.
I do what I can, and make do. Never said, or insinuated that I had all the environmental answers. Society has been structured by big oil and the car industry so that one MUST have a car, and as stated above, since I drive a low pollution vehicle, I do what I can. When I did live in a city during college years, I did not have a vehicle for 4 years and bicycled everywhere. And look forward to retirement when I will once again have a horse, bicyle and minimal vehicle usage.
I await further comments with eager anticipation.

I have concerns with the environment as well but can hardly profess that I live in an energy austere environment, driving a 5-liter Euro model without a smog pump or anything. I am not trying to justify my emissions.

But I do feel that the EPA and DOT are practicing pseudo-science and make decisions based on less than proven technology. Although the new vehicles have excellent emission reductions systems and electronic controls, there were times that they were simply reaching in the dark. The smog pump is one of them. The vehicles were between technologies. It is a major burden to keep these marginal systems in use. How about the “trap oxidizer”? Sure, you could scrap all the vehicles but pity the poor enthusiasts that happen to like that vintage. Few of these vehicles are even worth maintaining in the long run so most will go to the bone yard. If a few shade-tree mechanics disable these goofy systems it won’t make much of a difference. There are very few people who do their own auto work and it is getting a lot smaller because of the reduced maintenance requirements and increased system complexities. Only the few die-hards who actually enjoy the work will continue so the 640 million vehicles is not really an appropriate value.

If the government and citizens were interested in reduced emissions they would apply CAFÉ and emissions standards and to SUVs. V-10s and all the huge vehicles would be less popular but they are not. Too few are concerned with the problems and the SUV users don’t give a lick about efficiency, pollution or safety of others. (e.g.: Mass and bumper inequities). Go after them, the reduction yield would be far greater. (All IMHO).

Steve

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Steve
1985 Mercedes 500SL Euro (Gray market)
1995 BMW 520i Euro (Gray market)
1992 BMW 525it Wagon
1994 Honda Del Sol Si

I agree wholeheartedly to the above statement, the sad environmental situation we are in is a very complex problem with no complete answers, except, we do what we can to reduce. from our data approximately 67% of the citizens are NOT interested in emissions reduction, I speak to 10-30 people per day who could not care less. What are they concerned about? Paychecks, Sports games, TV, movies.

Can we all say " conspriracy"?

My favorite quote, and the one that gives me hope:

parenthesis are mine-

" The meek will inherit the (new) Earth"- Jesus Christ

Merry Christ-mass and a Happy New Year

Dear Friends, I think if we need to further this discussion, we should take it to open forum......
William Rogers..........

nah its fine... a good argument with lots of emotional banter is great. Personally, id like to add that my house is mouse powered, I haven't saved up enough to upgrade to gerbils yet, but when I do watch out! IM gonna be selling my surplus electricity back to the government! Cause the man is trying to keep me down!

Inspector - IS your house really solar powered? Thats fantastic!!! Do you store your power via battery or mechanical storage? And I hope there are no hard feelings, I think you can appreciate a good ole environment "debate" like me

And, just cause I can't sit around and shut myself up like I should... I am deactivating the smog pump because id much rather spend the $300 to get a new one on a 500E rollbar or camber control arms, and I don't see a few of us disconnecting our smog pumps being an issue cause all the rest of america still has theirs on.... And no, there is no "what if" scenario here, the rest of American will keep their smog pumps on...

My wife and I live in a small very well inulated house in the costal Mts. of OR. we heat with wood that we cut ourselves ,my wife grows 90% of the vegtables that we eat. Our total grocery bill includeing sundrays is about 75.00 dollars a month, we buy nor eat any store bought meat,(we eat only hunted meat or localy grown organic meat) and our ele. bill ranges from 20 to thirty dollars a month.
I do all my own repair work on my 3 MB's (parts from fastlane) our primary driving car is a 81 300 SD (no smog pump) my toy and joy back up car is my 86 Euro 500 SE (sold my KZ and getting a touch too old for a 930....... William Rogers.........
attachment is part of our winter meat........

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Yeah, as some now famous NY Senator once said, "It's a vast right wing conspiracy".

Seriously though, in my judgment this whole issue is basic cost/benefit analysis. Cost/benefit analysis is a relatively simple and widely used technique for deciding whether to make a change. As its name suggests, to use the technique simply add up the value of the benefits of a course of action, and subtract the costs associated with it.

In this instance what are the value of the benefits of replacing a bad AIR pump? Negligible in my estimation. You get a "proper" running MB again. This is obviously worth more to some than others. You don't need it to pass a smog check as repeatedly stated in this thread, but you might be caught with it disconnected by the inspector as others have mentioned, but the chances of this happening are scant, and if you're worried about this, well, just hook the dang thing back up again after it's warm and drive to your smog check. Environmental benefits? Slim to none -- but again some people may place more importance than others in this area.

Costs of replacing the AIR pump? Too much! $1000 or so I've heard for a new one.... $400-$500 for a rebuilt unit.

IMO the costs clearly outweight the benefit ... and disconnecting a bad air pump is the way to go.

To each his own.

Happy Holidays,

__________________
-Paul-
'01 E430, Sport 72,000 mi
'98 C280, 126,500 mi

Inspector:

Sorry to insist, but whatever the emissions of your 3 liter engine the ones from (for instance) SMART car from Daimler are for sure considerably lower. Just imagine if all americans with 3 liter and more powerful engines would just drive the SMART car... can you imagine the impact this would have on the environment???

This car can easily cruise at 55 mph, so I guess there is no argument considering the performance..maybe capacity could be an issue since it has just two seats (but in this case you could drive a hyunday Matiz, for instance...)

In Europe SMART car is very popular due to low consumptions (1 liter of premium here costs $1 US. I insist: one liter, not one gallon...) and obvious advantages when parking on "crowded" towns.

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Sorry ,

Merry Xmas and a happy new year to all of you.

disconnecting the air pump will give you a check engine light with code P0411 on an OBD2 equipped car

__________________
1995 c220 (harness issues sold)
1999 clk 320 cabriolet

Your description of the screeching noise on cold startup is probably the air pump as you had surmised. If you elect to replace the pump, you'll find that a new pump from the dealer is more than $1000! However, there is an option. When mine went bad, I did a search and found that Adsit stocks rebuilt air pumps. For my E320, the rebuilt pump was less than $300. And, you can order the pump over the internet.

Hope this helps.