Australia not part of ‘Mercedes dieselgate’ -- yet

Australian owners of Mercedes-Benz vehicles remain unaffected at this stage by a move to “improve” the emissions software of three million Mercedes-Benz vehicles in Europe.

However, a Mercedes-Benz spokesman has indicated the European recall, which the company continues to insist is voluntary, could spread to other countries.

In what is being described as the historic brand’s own version of Volkswagen’s dieselgate scandal, Mercedes’ parent company Daimler has issued a “service action" to upgrade three million European cars and SUVs fitted with V6 and four-cylinder turbo-diesel engines dating back to 2006.

The service action was announced in Europe a day after German newspaper Der Spiegel reported earlier this week that the German transport department (KBA) threatened to recall all Mercedes-Benz vehicles powered by the engines.

"We decided to take at first approximately three million cars in the European union," said Christoph Sedlymayr, Mercedes-Benz Vehicle R&D and Sustainable Mobility communications manager.

Speaking to motoring.com.au at the global media launch of the upgraded S-Class limousine in Zurich today, Sedlymayr said the recall – which he referred to as a “voluntary service action" -- is "currently only European based".

"Because in Australia you have completely different types of certification, you have other software and hardware in the engines, so you can't directly compare the Australian, Chinese, Japanese or European versions."

Not another dieselgate, says exec

Sedlymayr insisted the voluntary recall shouldn’t be compared to Volkswagen’s costly dieselgate scandal, which has so far cost Europe’s largest car-maker $US23 billion and was today expanded to include 850,000 VW, Audi and Porsche vehicles powered by Audi's V6 and V8 turbo-diesel engines.

"I will not comment on Volkswagen, but they are paying for what they did. It's a huge thing. I think we should focus on our things and that's what we always do,” he said.

"It's not even been forced by the legal authorities and our cars on the market have been certified to the legal rules."

Mercedes-Benz started recalling vehicles in March for a software fix before the Daimler offices were raided by German police in May.

Now Daimler has spent €220 million to fix three million European vehicles, but Sedlymayr insists the action is not a recall.

"We are doing voluntary service measurements right now which are already running in certain cars, for example with the compact car segment, A-Class, B-Class, CLA, GLA -- things like this,” he said.

“We have currently around 250,000 cars which are doing this service measurement in order to improve NOx emissions, but this is not a recall."

Recall not triggered by authorities

The company spokesman said the reason for the massive and costly voluntary service was to share new developments learnings from its latest turbo-diesel engines.

"We have not been forced by the authorities to do so. We are doing it because our new engine family, the OM 654 and OM 656 … partly out of the learnings of this engine and the public situation where we expect diesel bans in inner city areas, so we decided to go for the voluntary service action," he said

Almost every Mercedes-Benz executive we approached refused to comment on the situation -- except for Sedlymayr, whose tone suggested more vehicles may be "fixed" to reduce their nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, which can be harmful to humans.

If German authorities decide that Daimler has indeed used a thermal switch to cheat emissions tests as reported, it will be forced to recall millions more cars, some dating back many years. In some quarters, the move is being likened to a pre-emptive strike to reduce the fallout.

"With the public debate going on we decided, because we have the technical options to do it – and customers are concerned obviously – we would extend this activation not only with compact cars but also with all of the [diesel] engines running in the mid-size and large-scale cars."

Emissions cheating scandal could eventuate

The Mercedes-Benz executive who has a deep understanding of the brand's powertrains wouldn't be drawn on whether the issue could blow up like Volkswagen's dieselgate scandal.

"We are dealing with the legal authorities in Germany and the Department of Justice in the US, so from my point of view we are doing very important changes which are really easy to improve for the customer.

"It's a software update which reduces NOx emissions. That's I think the first steps and steps we can define right now," he said.

"What's happening with the legal authorities I'm not able to say," he added.

It's unclear how the situation will play out or whether the voluntary actions being undertaken by Daimler will have any effect on external investigations.

Mercedes-Benz owners have a right to be concerned and Sedlymayr sympathised with the situation they've been put in.

"I know what we're doing with our engines and technology, but if I was a customer who didn’t know what was happening with engines and tech, I would understand for sure that the customer would be concerned.

"Everybody's concerned if the public debate is running about topics which you cannot really talk about or integrate because you're not doing what is right or wrong.

"It's a public debate done by the media and public institutions, so I can only say we are doing everything to make it for the customer as transparent as possible and deal with all the technical solutions we are having to improve, even if it's not legally necessary.

"We decided to do it. We have the technical development now. It should give confidence to the customer," concluded Sedlymayr.

Mercedes-Benz Australia is yet to comment on the matter and it remains to be seen whether local owners of Mercedes-Benz vehicles will be affected by Daimler's unfolding emissions situation.