Mercedes Quality. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aGwciMGnjK
 

why don't we see the "Latest and Greatest" from Deutschland?

"The luxury automaker faces quality problems for its new flagship diesel engines for the C and E class models, German daily Handelsblatt reports citing an unnamed spokesman. Defect injection nozzles from car parts maker Delphi led to a recall of 25,000 cars in Germany, the newspaper adds. "


http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/engine/77050-blue-efficiency-injector-recall.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aGwciMGnjKWE

Bump
 

Readers

Compress,
I hope your not suggesting that you or any one on this discussion forum should be surprised by this.

Every couple of days some one mentions what junk bosch injector tips are. The bean counters in Germany at MB, like bean counters running any other car company, have no idea, they will have screwed bosch to the point that they needed to cut costs and so we have crap from India.

Indian/Korean/Taiwan filters will be next.

The interior finish on the w124 compared with the w123 is another example of cheapness.

In Australia we had 180E's that were not made in Germany.

We are lucky that the ML's are not being made in Korea by Musso.

Unfortunately the days of MB building cars with the longevity of the older Benz's is over. I cant see too many 2010 Mercs lasting 30 years and doing high mileages. Can you?
Best we keep the proper Benz's going for as long as possible !!

Delphi > Lucas Cav
 

For once,these are not Bosch Injectors!
(Delphi [Can you say General Motors ?] now belongs to Lucas Cav [can you say
Sir David Lucas the "Prince of Darkness" en Francais ?]
AND DB [Mercedes]is allowing a 6th generation of these faulty injectors to be foisted upon the Long Suffering Populace of the EU ?

What amazes me is that the U.K. residents are standing still long enough to be
"Hosed" by Mercedes

"Ovah Heah",If "They" can't fix it in Three Trys...
It gets shoved up "Their" neither regions.(Legally)

AND the Effing way Mercedes is treating their UK customers...
"Let's take care of the newest Offendees FIRST...The Older sufferers are already Too Pissed Off to be able to save.(Our "Face" with them)"

ML (Or the GL series) [and the original M series] all made in Tuscaloosa,AL USA
(Remember when Mercedes had to open a second "M" series Production plant
in Graz ,Austria...Because the EU and Asian Rim customers refused to buy
the "M" made in Alabama? WELL the QC ain't gotten any better.
AND Mercedes is going to begin producing the "C" class in Tuscaloosa ,Too!)

You don't want ANY Mercedes made in the 'Ole USA!

Exactly. These are also the in the C class diesel that, "Will not be offered in the North American market." - MBUSA website.

Q:You know why Brits sometimes drink room temp. beer?

A:Lucas also made refrigerators.

I can say this because I have intimate first hand knowledge of Lucas. I rewired my '72 Triumph (bike) and most of my '73 MGB (sold.)

I can, it all comes down to maintenance. They new ones are not poorly built, they are still very well made. If you do extra obsessive maintenance on them like the older ones that are still around have been given, they will last that long too.

Pre '93
 

'O Brother of the Great Frozen North Lands ,
(pawoSD)

Yes, I see you out in the Negative "F" (With a Wind Chill factor of -20)
servicing all of your post 2000 Mercedes...

"If the Factory has to bribe Berlin Taxi drivers to purchase Mercedes...
Something is wrong."

Suspicious!
 

I'm suspicious that Mercedes is intentionally under minding diesel technology to keep gas cars dominant in the automotive industry market for the near future. Refusing to pay Bosch can't just be the only reason for these issues of poor quality infecting Mercedes diesel cars in my opinion.

GM (General Motors) using Delphi manufactured parts (probably) is what helped to give diesel passenger cars a bad rap in the last energy crisis when GM attempted to develop and market a passenger car, diesel engine in the 1980's which ended in catastrophic results and deemed a total failure by history and now Mercedes is using Delphi (the same Delphi of the 1980's) to produce diesel injectors and those Delphi injectors are being blamed for poor quality issues in new diesel engines when the injector is trying to operate at pressures at or approaching 30,000 psi, which is ridiculous to have a requirement such as that, when diesel technology is so simple at its core.

Also, I would bet that the problem is not the injectors at all, but is the injection pump, as the injection pump has always been the source of problems in the past, but everything else but the injection pump has been blamed and scape goated by Mercedes because Mercedes just don't know injection pumps and don't want to pay Bosch which Bosch technology is equivalent or not more so to a diesel engine than the engine designers are to the equation but Mercedes refuse to pay Bosch for what it brings to the table in terms of what makes diesel cars run reliably; I've concluded. It's kind of like asking a thoroughbred horse to win the Kentucky Derby but the thoroughbred has no legs, which Bosch is the legs and Mercedes is the thoroughbred in the passenger car diesel engines game.

The solution to the problem will never be resolved until Mercedes pay Bosch a more than fair share of the profits made or the problems will continue indefinitely, unless Mercedes is intentionally trying to kill off the diesel passenger car industry. A computer is never going to control a diesel engine and not cost more than the car itself, which will bring Mercedes back to the same problem they have now but at a higher cost when they have to pay the computer people as opposed to paying the mechanical people; it appears Mercedes has a problem even with that, paying Bosch.

It is just unfortunate for Delphi to be caught up in the middle in what for Delphi is a lose, lose situation no matter what they do. It is very hard and difficult to reinvent the wheel, which is Delphi's task in making these Mercedes diesels go at 30.000 pounds of pressure per square inch on an injector. The diesel injection pump is the legs that make things go and how can you pump 30,000 psi and be in time and the engine pistons can withstand that pressure at all ranges of engine performance needs by the driver? Anybody can build an engine. But diesel injection is a totally different kind of animal that is hardly understood except for by Bosch. They are truly geniuses over at Bosch in what they do. They can do good or they can do bad and it doesn't make a dime difference to them which it is, bad or good because they can always do D grade work and the car companies will just have to deal with it and keep buying D grade stuff from them, when their A stuff is in the vault waiting to get paid for.

This is what my research company has lead us to believe and mostly know in the context of what information is known about diesel injection systems.

BenzDiesel

ReSponse from MBNA
 

"Re: Quality ?
Thursday, January 7, 2010 12:21 PM
From:
"mailmaster@mbusa.com" <mailmaster@mbusa.com>

To:
Undisclosed Recipient

This will confirm receipt of your e-mail.

As the vehicles mentioned are not in the US line-up, we are unable to
comment on the articles/ websites sent. Your comments have been
documented.

Sincerely,

Carol C.
Mercedes-Benz USA"


"Your Comments Have Been Documented" ("I'm Quaking in my Boots")

Küssen Sie Meine Staub

WTF happened during Hundreds of thousands of miles...
 

of testing by Deutschlander Taxi drivers?

BenzDiesel,

Something does not add up?

The idea of using the same block for diesels and gassers does not help. the 60x started Benz down that path with an alloy head diesel. They appear to have eventually got that to work, at great expense to their customers. Now a V6 diesel, very similar block to the V6 gasser. This saves MB the costs of a separate engine production line. Peugeot developed high pressure diesel injection more than 10 years ago but didnt try to operate at any where near the pressures that MB are trying. MB is trying to extend that development. With the development of this type of technology, you can forget about alternate fuels; WVO & Bio. The operating parameters of these motors will prevent its use. The demise of the MB diesel is just a part of the whole change in ethos at MB. In years gone by all cars were guaranteed fault free ex the factory in Germany. That stopped a long time ago. now we have all sorts of recalls, just like other car Co's. Until bean counters stop running MB and they go back to striving for Engineering Excellence in all they do, expect to see more than just injector tip problems.

Sad, but true. Eventually, if the ship ain't righted, everybody will lose.


FNHB

Somethin' rotten in Denmark...
 

...errr Germany.


FNHB

I suspect Daimler tested using a Bosch system.
 

Then changed to Delphi or used Delphi in addition to some Bosch systems (the system used in the tests and supplied on the taxi cars sold) once actual production began and nothing is heard about the Bosch supplied car failures because there are none, just the failures on cars supplied with the Delphi parts and or system, further killing the Delphi brand name in terms of Delphi being a viable car parts supplier. Daimler always from my understanding use at least two sources of manufacturers to produce any parts that are required to build their cars, so if one company bulks the system or have problems producing the parts; the other alternative supplier companies can keep the production lines rolling. That is just good business practice on the part of Daimler. Example, tires; they use Michelin tires primarily or used to, but keep Continental in the loop just in case Michelin has a hiccup. They probably use both Fed Ex and UPS as well and keep DHL in the loop just in case. And I would bet that Delphi told Daimler that they could make diesel systems for half the price that Bosch charged and Mercedes gave them a shot on their entry level diesel cars, the four cylinder diesels having the, they say, injector problems.

BenzDiesel

Not having the fuel injection system diagram and any of the component specification sheets to examine, I find it difficult to conclude the problem the thread originator posted is not actually the real problem - that the injectors are not up to snuff. The new injection system maintains a specific volume of fuel at that high pressure, 30,000 psi was quoted, and the injectors are operated by a piezo-electric actuator that is triggered by the computer. The actuator responds up to seven times, as I recall from past articles on the system, per power stroke - which is necessary to minimize the emissions produced, including soot. It also makes the engine much quieter.

If you are familiar with hydraulic system valves that have no soft seals you will understand what a difficult manufacturing job this is. The tolerances for the sliding interfaces between moving and stationary parts is miniscule as the clearances needed are similar and have to remain in the desired range throughout the operating temperature of the injector. Any loss of dimensional control along the manufacturing route in the factory and the load for that piezo-electric actuator can change, which, if the load goes up because parts are sticking, can mess up the sequential timing of the multiple strokes for each power stroke.

Early problems with the system involved the pressurized volume of Diesel in the volume immediately upstream of the injector nozzle seats. The frequencies of pressure pulsations in the system from multiple injectors firing in time over the rpm and load range set up resonant responses, much like water hammering in a home water system. It was causing early failure of the tubing connections and resulted in changes to the available frequencies for injectors firing, as well as the geometry of the injector lines that feed the high pressure fuel to the injectors.

The fact that Delphi is making the injectors and they are failing in production is a breakdown of MB's long touted testing program. In the past with newer products as well as older ones, systems that failed rarely brought the power plant, braking system or steering system down. That seems to be changing, which does not bode well for MB.

Jim