EU4 engines: fuel economy issues?

[the zacster]

I'm heading off to test-drive a March '05 E280CDI estate over the weekend, which the stealer tells me is the newish EU4 spec. (I'd thought that the EU4s only came in late last year to be compliant with the mandatory EU4 requirement from Jan-'06). Anyway, I read somewhere on the forum that the early EU4 engines may have been a problem (with lots of people complaining about the economy as MB turned up the fuel to compensate for the filter).

As fuel economy is reasonably important to me, I wondered whether anyone had any insight into problems (part vis-a-vis fuel economy) on the earlier EU4 engines (as I assume a March '05 car would have been one of the earliest EU4s)? Thanks

 

[jberks]

They developed for EU4 well over 12 months ago now. They did this on the 220 and 320 engines and economy nose dived. They didn't do the 270 so that stayed EU3 and retained the economy.

However, the new V6's are designed from the bottom up as EU4 so there shouldn't be a problem. All EU4s will have lower economy than late EU3s (check MB direct web site and compare) and a new 280 is worse than the old 270 but then its also a lot faster and more refined so its swings and ladders.

In any case, the 280 hasn't changed since release so a March 05 one shouldn't be any different to a new one.