600,000 Diesel Mercedes Cars May Have Cheat Device
Over 600,000 diesel Mercedes-Benz C-Class and G-Class vehicles may have been fitted with an illegal cheat device, the German government alleges.
According to Der Spiegel, KBA, the German transport authority, is looking into suspicions that diesel C-Class sedans and G-Class SUVs were fitted with a device designed to manipulate exhaust emissions levels.
Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, did not want to provide a comment for the Der Spiegel report. It said it had not been formally summoned to the German transport ministry over allegations related to theC-Class and G-Class, however.
SEE ALSO: 2018 Mercedes-Benz GLC 300 Review
The report surfaced shortly after Mercedes was accused of using a cheat device in diesel versions of its Vito van, which has a 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine manufactured by Renault. The French carmaker was suspected of fitting cheat devices to a number of its diesel cars in 2016, but has denied the allegations thus far. German Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer summoned Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche to the ministry Monday over suspicions related to the Vito van.
The KBA has ordered the recalled of roughly 6,300 Vito van units.
[SourceL: Der Spiegel]
Discuss this story on our Mercedes-Benz Forum.
Sam McEachern holds a diploma in journalism from St. Clair College in Windsor, Ontario, and has been covering the automotive industry for over 5 years. He conducts reviews and writes AutoGuide's news content. He's a die-hard motorsports fan with a passion for performance cars of all sorts.
More by Sam McEachern
Comments
Join the conversation
allegedly guilty of using a device installed by another manufacturer on their product...meaning they (KBA) are shooting blanks hoping to hit their target. If Renault is the engine maker, I would suspect they are also in charge of the ECU tuning and therefore Renault is the guilty party, not M-B, who in this scenario is the customer of Renault. Do these 600k other M-B also use Renault developed engines too, or are they M-B engines? Which engine is the offending engine? Is this German gov't agency, Der Spiegel, KBA, reaching deep for a money grab and trying to take advantage of recent "successes" with the VW/Audi Group?