Heat coming from front ? 2012 e350 cdi

[Sr108]

So I’ve been driving a bit today and I’m noticing quite some heat coming from the front of the car , got out and put my head near the front wheel on drivers side and quite a lot of heat coming from underneath, with that smell of hot exhaust pipe , was also feeling some heat inside the car , normal or not?

Another thing I’ve noticed is that the steering is very nice and fluid at slow speed but when actually driving it becomes very heavy is this normal ?

 

[Blobcat]

DPF regen

 

[malcolm E53 AMG]

The DPF regeneration is a bit disconcerting at first and very little said about it in the manual.
Yes, that is normal behaviour for the steering mine does it weight is progressively added to the steering (sensotronic) as the speed increases. It means you can park the car without being a bodybuilder

 

[Dean Fletcher]

+1 for regen, my car feels like it has the heater on full when this happens.

 

[Sr108]

The DPF regeneration is a bit disconcerting at first and very little said about it in the manual.
Yes, that is normal behaviour for the steering mine does it weight is progressively added to the steering (sensotronic) as the speed increases. It means you can park the car without being a bodybuilder

Haha yeah but you have to be a body builder to steer it round bends. Do all bigger sizes cars work like this ? Stiffer steering as speed increases ? It doesn’t feel good to me ..

 

[Dean Fletcher]

Haha yeah but you have to be a body builder to steer it round bends. Do all bigger sizes cars work like this ? Stiffer steering as speed increases ? It doesn’t feel good to me ..

Do you go to the gym?
Seriously has the car always been like that? Some Mercedes have Speed sensitive steering stop you turning quickly doing 100mph

 

[Sr108]

The DPF regeneration is a bit disconcerting at first and very little said about it in the manual.
Yes, that is normal behaviour for the steering mine does it weight is progressively added to the steering (sensotronic) as the speed increases. It means you can park the car without being a bodybuilder

Just found a post of yours about Dpf regen from few years back . You said that your car did the regen while driving for 15 miles , what did you mean , it does it automatically ? How do I do this with mine ? Just need to drive on motorway for 15 mins or something ?

 

[malcolm E53 AMG]

Haha yeah but you have to be a body builder to steer it round bends. Do all bigger sizes cars work like this ? Stiffer steering as speed increases ? It doesn’t feel good to me ..

You’ll get used to it I have. I must admit on high speed long sweeping bends it’s not the best although as the car has gained miles the resistance has reduced

 

[Dean Fletcher]

Just found a post of yours about Dpf regen from few years back . You said that your car did the regen while driving for 15 miles , what did you mean , it does it automatically ? How do I do this with mine ? Just need to drive on motorway for 15 mins or something ?

Your car will automatically do a regen every 300 miles or so the amount of mile between is debatable. You don’t need to do a thing unless it clogs and which you would get a yellow engine management light and the code would read soot accumulation. There is steps to do to sort this. But it sounds like your car is doing exactly what it should you need not worry unless the yellow EML come on.
Do you drive long distances or short trips?

 

[malcolm E53 AMG]

Just found a post of yours about Dpf regen from few years back . You said that your car did the regen while driving for 15 miles , what did you mean , it does it automatically ? How do I do this with mine ? Just need to drive on motorway for 15 mins or something ?

The regen occurs every 200-300 miles depending on usage - my comment on that thread relates to the time the regen takes to complete ie 10 miles or circa 15 mins

 

[Sr108]

Your car will automatically do a regen every 300 miles or so the amount of mile between is debatable. You don’t need to do a thing unless it clogs and which you would get a yellow engine management light and the code would read soot accumulation. There is steps to do to sort this. But it sounds like your car is doing exactly what it should you need not worry unless the yellow EML come on.
Do you drive long distances or short trips?

Mostly short trips, so should I take it on motorway every week for 15 mins or something ?

 

[Sr108]

The regen occurs every 200-300 miles depending on usage - my comment on that thread relates to the time the regen takes to complete ie 10 miles or circa 15 mins

So I don’t need to do anything ? The heat that I mentioned is fine ? I’d rather not have that heat , should I take it on motorway for 15 mins ?

 

[malcolm E53 AMG]

I always run the car until the regen completes but then again I’m retired so that’s not a problem.

If you ran the car on the motorway ie say a commute of 25 miles each way per day the engine would probably clean the DPF naturally ie the exhaust would attain a high enough temperature to burn the soot out of the DPF without forcing a regeneration, but for most that isn’t the case

 

[Dean Fletcher]

Mostly short trips, so should I take it on motorway every week for 15 mins or something ?

Depends on how short the trips are?
If you only do short journeys of a few miles get it on the motorway for 30 minutes in cruise control set at 60mph.
Or you can get super fancy and buy a obd computer then shows the percentage the dpf is full so you know when to take it for the long trip to regen

 

[Sr108]

You’ll get used to it I have. I must admit on high speed long sweeping bends it’s not the best although as the car has gained miles the resistance has reduced

Yeah for sure when you go around bends it feels like you’re not gonna make it

 

[malcolm E53 AMG]

Yeah for sure when you go around bends it feels like you’re not gonna make it

I’ve experienced this but was pushing along at the time. It’s all part of the characteristics of the car once you experience it you back off a little in the future these cars are quite powerful but they aren’t sports cars

 

[Sr108]

I’ve experienced this but was pushing along at the time. It’s all part of the characteristics of the car once you experience it you back off a little in the future these cars are quite powerful but they aren’t sports cars

Yes I have come to understand that , I had a Volvo s40 d5 before this and you can throw it about everywhere , driving the e class you have to be a lot more mindful and careful , i wanted either c350 or e350 and I found that the E350 cdi go for a lot less than the C350 cdi so I went with the E, I love it but handling wise for me a C class would probably be better .

 

[malcolm E53 AMG]

The W213 has better suspension MB dropped the McPherson strut (used in the W211/W212) after the Chrysler divorce and went back to a wishbone set-up which suits our roads a lot better