E350 CDI in for GAD power tuning!!!

[GAD Tuning LTD]

Good afternoon guys and girls,

A little update of what we have been up to this week! We have had three Bentleys in for tuning and one of them was a nightmare!!!

But we are all about the Mercs! So here are the pics of the E350 CDI we had booked in for power tuning!

The tuning process was as follows, we have to jack the E-class up and remove the ECU as its not kept under the bonnet! Its in the wheel arch???

Which lets all the weather at it! Not good!

Also being that the management is EDC17 CP10 IROM we had to remove and programme directly!

After this Gary could work his magic and adjusted fuel tables, turbo pressure tables, rail pressure tables, MSOT and all the boost limiters and torque limiters with full gearbox mapping.

Here are a couple of pics!!!

If you guys have any questions please pop comments below and im sure we can help!!!

Or if you guys want to book in either PM us or fill in our contact form here!!!

 

[turbopete]

what a ridiculous place to put an ECU!!!

i think if i owned a car with the ECU there, id be very tempted to have it wrapped in plastic or similar, to keep it dry!

 

[GAD Tuning LTD]

Its dry to an extent the wheel arch liner acts as protention but thats about it !
The biggest problem is if you have a side impact your car will more than likely not move and the ecu will be destroyed ! Not so good of course no one is looking to crash but if you do youll know why your car is disabled.

Many Thanks the GAD Tuning Support Team http://www.gadtuning.co.uk

 

[turbopete]

i suppose it was designed around the LHD market. surely it wouldnt have been that hard for them to relocate it to the N/S for RHD cars!

 

[GAD Tuning LTD]

Im not sure its that either because the battery is located where the ECU is located in the C-Class??? The C-Class the battery is in the boot and the ECU is next to the air con lines. The E-Class the battery is next to the air con lines and ECU is in the wheel arch??? Strange I know!!! The ML's are the same, in the wheel arch!

Regards

The GAD Team

 

[grmc]

Interested in the results!

I'm really interested in the results of the tuning guys.

I've just bought the new E350 AMG Sports (3.0 diesel) with handling pack option and the fuel consumption is atrocious. Nowhere near the claimed figures, and I've not even begun to push the car yet.

I'm getting 22/23 urban, 34ish extra urban and around 27/28 combined (and yes, to repeat, this is the diesel engine, not the petrol engine).

At £50k for the car, the engine choice was meant to be saving me £1000s in fuel over the life of ownership on anticipated mileage, so I'm really feeling rather had, when MB claim 39+urban, 47 combined and 54 extra urban.

 

[JBell]

At £50k for the car, the engine choice was meant to be saving me £1000s in fuel over the life of ownership on anticipated mileage

What is your anticipated mileage?

What kind of driving do you do?

I'm really feeling rather had, when MB claim 39+urban, 47 combined and 54 extra urban.

Claim is the giveaway in that sentence

 

[grmc]

What is your anticipated mileage?

Probably 20,000 miles a year over the next 3 years.

What kind of driving do you do?

Currently it's a short commute (7 miles) and I'm averaging 25-27mpg depending on the direction of travel. Around a quarter is at 30 then 40 (flat), a quarter at 50 (flat) and about a half at 60 (up and down). I don't run the engine to warm it before setting off, and the route has just three stops in the entire distance (often just one if a set of lights is at the right phase), otherwise it is a quick acceleration to the 40, 50 and 60 mph limits on each segment with very little slowing in between. The best I've managed on this run is the homeward journey where I got 27mpg (which starts with the 50% at 60mph). Going to the office the best is around 25mpg, and the reason for this is probably a very steep bank of about half a mile distance on the 60mph stretch.

The anticipated use is likely to be mostly motorway journeys so I'm hoping they will show a better return although of the three long(ish) runs I've had so far; Stafford to Oxford, Stafford to Cotswolds, Stafford to Manchester, the best is working out at 34mpg. Although I *like* driving at 90mph, in reality it's no longer that often you get to average at more than 75mph, so that's the sort of speed those journeys have been taken at, but with modern motorway driving, it's anywhere between a steady 50 and a steady 85, assuming you're not stopping and starting (thankfully I've not experienced any of that in this car yet).

 

[JBell]

Currently it's a short commute (7 miles) and I'm averaging 25-27mpg depending on the direction of travel. Around a quarter is at 30 then 40 (flat), a quarter at 50 (flat) and about a half at 60 (up and down).

There is your answer, a short commute with stop start driving will never give you good mpg or get close to the MB figures.

I do a 10 mile commute in traffic and get 30mpg average over that in a C220 CDi.

 

[grmc]

There is your answer, a short commute with stop start driving will never give you good mpg or get close to the MB figures.

I do a 10 mile commute in traffic and get 30mpg average over that in a C220 CDi.

My beef is that the C350 petrol engine delivered around 90% of the published "urban" figure on the exact same route (even though I disagree it is "urban" and more like "extra" or "combined" - I'm realistic enough to not expect those returns), which means my expectations were that I would get around 35mpg out of the diesel engine based on the same calculated/derived figures from the same manufacturer.

Instead I'm getting around 60% of the "urban" figure, which to me is ridiculous. If this is deemed an acceptable discrepancy, then it renders the published figures for any diesel vehicle utterly meaningless, particularly when compared to petrol which as I've said are almost always in my experience of near 30 years of car ownership, around 90% faithful.

I got in my car last night after the dealer "road test" and I noticed they'd performed it with no radio on (which in part I could understand) but what disgusted me is that there wasn't even any ventilation on. I've never known anyone who drives their car without the ventilation system on. So they managed 47mpg driving the car like Miss Daisy, with none of the electronics working or even any ventilation on in the vehicle. And that's meant to prove what?

 

[JBell]

My beef is that the C350 petrol engine delivered around 90% of the published "urban" figure on the exact same route (even though I disagree it is "urban" and more like "extra" or "combined" - I'm realistic enough to not expect those returns), which means my expectations were that I would get around 35mpg out of the diesel engine based on the same calculated/derived figures from the same manufacturer.

Diesel suffers more on stop start than petrol, doing that sort of journey the petrol car it the only choice, buying a car based on what the manufacturer says it will do is naieve as the tests are carried out in lab conditions to get a low CO2 reading.

Instead I'm getting around 60% of the "urban" figure, which to me is ridiculous. If this is deemed an acceptable discrepancy, then it renders the published figures for any diesel vehicle utterly meaningless, particularly when compared to petrol which as I've said are almost always in my experience of near 30 years of car ownership, around 90% faithful.

The figures are meaningless, even the Prius gets no where near its figures, my car apparently does 45mpg but in normal driving I get 30 so I am 33% down BUT my parents C250CGi is only 10% down on MB's claims.

I got in my car last night after the dealer "road test" and I noticed they'd performed it with no radio on (which in part I could understand) but what disgusted me is that there wasn't even any ventilation on. I've never known anyone who drives their car without the ventilation system on. So they managed 47mpg driving the car like Miss Daisy, with none of the electronics working or even any ventilation on in the vehicle. And that's meant to prove what?

That is how MB do the tests, it gets the mpg up and the CO2 down.

Just to add fuel to the fire Diesel is around 5% dearer as well !!!!!!

 

[grmc]

My anticipation is that for much of the next three years, I'll be on motorways and other longer journeys, hence opting for the diesel version based on the claimed figures. However, even those routes are currently returning 60% of the reported mileage (because silly me, I want to drive with the radio and ventilator on - not air con, remember, just the ventilator).

What really irks me is that I have friends with MB, BMW and Audi diesels and all of them are saying that their actual consumption (yes, even with the air con and radio on) is very close to the claimed figures. It just seems like MB have made an error in the literature for this particular model.

So, the upshot of all this is that I'm currently stuck with a car that is actually returning less MPG on the use it is getting than my previous C350 V6 petrol car did, which had a lot more power and my fuel is also now more expensive. And all this because I bought a car on the basis I thought it would be saving me money in the long run.

If irony had a smell, I bet it would smell of diesel.

 

[JBell]

The MPG will get better over time as the engine loosens up but will be interesting to see how much

 

[Rotorhead500]

If it helps, my CLS does mainly motorways (although frequent visits to the M5, M40/42, M6 can add a fair old amount of stop/start these days); with cruise set at an indicated 80, A/C on low, stereo on I generally wind up with an average of 43mpg on the trip across 400-700 mile trips (with a little bit of playing on hills heading in & out of Devon); tank-to-tank vs mileage calcs have been returning within 1mpg of the trip typically.

IIRC, the CLS is a bit heavier than the E-Class (although not sure with the cabriolet), so I'd be surprised if your newer engine doesn't get up to that before long.

FWIW, town driving drops mpg to mid-high 20s typically (with me being fairly pedestrian) - urban or stop/start driving with an auto seems to kill economy in my experience.

 

[GAD Tuning LTD]

The MPG will get better over time as the engine loosens up but will be interesting to see how much

Very true! Also power output. We mapped a brand new Brabus Vito which 6 months and 7k miles later is now putting out an extra 12bhp from when we mapped it!!!

Regards

Thr GAD team

 

[grmc]

Something that I've been meaning to ask about on this supposed "diesel suffering more on stop-start" is that if the engines are so much more inefficient than petrol engines when cold or stopping and starting, then what benefit is the ECO auto cut-off/ignition to the overall consumption?

Mine does it even from the first thing in the morning way before the temperature gets up to 'normal'.

 

[Rotorhead500]

Something that I've been meaning to ask about on this supposed "diesel suffering more on stop-start" is that if the engines are so much more inefficient than petrol engines when cold or stopping and starting, then what benefit is the ECO auto cut-off/ignition to the overall consumption?

Mine does it even from the first thing in the morning way before the temperature gets up to 'normal'.

I'm assuming it works to the same principles as my old BM, but stop-start is only supposed to work within certain parameters, one of which is engine up to normal operating temp...!

 

[grmc]

I'll have a closer look and see what the temperature has risen to by the time the ECO cut-out kicks in when stationary.

Update today from the dashboard stats. I'm achieving 26.4mpg on a relatively non-stop 6 mile commute to work (this has been as low as 22mpg and as high as 28mpg) and overall I'm achieving 29.7mpg after 1600 miles. Yesterday I did a round trip from Stafford to Manchester via the M6/M56 with relatively little stopping and an average of 75mph there and 85mph back (overall average for the journey was 59mph) and achieved 32.6mpg.

Just to save anyone scrolling back up the thread, the figures for my E350 Cabriolet AMG Sport are 39.2mpg urban, 47mpg combined and 54mpg "extra urban".