The Saga of the BenzForce SuperPump

Dieselmeken is often considered “best in class” when it comes to Mercedes diesel injection pump performance. Swedish founder Göran Lindgren has spent countless hours developing his custom elements and ALDA modifications. He also sells his product for a very reasonable price.

A couple of years ago, I had Göran build a SuperPump for me, but somehow the case got cracked. Naturally, I freaked out and immediately found another donor pump. Then I emailed Göran to see if he could swap his internals into the core I found. Anyone who has ever worked with him knows he is a class act. Indeed, he did the swap for me. The biggest issue I had was with shipping costs: the first pump was shipped to Sweden; I paid return shipping for the SuperPump; shipping for both pumps to have the elements swapped; and, finally, return shipping for my fixed pump. Coming in at roughly 25 lbs for the package (or 50 lbs for the swap), you can imagine how quickly I racked up shipping expenses for three round trips. Ouch!

Fast forward to 2017 – I knew that the biggest upgrade for the Mercedes diesel market is for injection pumps. I also knew who to go to: Dieselmeken. I was blessed to be permitted to buy, resell and have pumps built in the USA using Dieselmeken’s proprietary elements. From the onset, Göran and I agreed that I needed to find a legit Bosch-certified shop to do the work. The shop must be competent to ensure that customers get the quality they are paying for. The dilemma, however, was that I’m not an injection pump builder and I didn’t work closely with any Bosch-certified shops in the USA. With pump kits on order, I was in heavy pursuit of a builder.

My personal goal was to come as close to Dieselmeken’s price as possible. I knew it would be difficult since I can’t control labor costs. In Fall 2017 I thought I hit gold. I found an authorized Bosch shop that was all about performance. The owner was onboard with pricing, had a test bench that looked like it should be on the cover of a magazine, a clean room, etc. The only problem was that he didn’t have the setup for the Mercedes 603 pump. No problem, we could just buy one, right? After many months of calls to the manufacturer, we were quoted a price that was totally unjustifiable. We realized that we were dead in the water.

By late winter (early 2018), I found another shop in the area that said they could do it. I took in a 603 core. They struggled quite a bit, but with Dieselmeken’s help, they were able to build the pump correctly. Success! Now that we have the first SuperPump, I know this shop understands how to do it, how long it takes, and that they are equipped to get the job done. Wonderful, right? Not so fast. They won’t discount their labor rate even though I’m offering them new business. As a result, what they’re charging to build the pump adds quite a bit to the bottom line and isn’t feasible.

By March 2018 I was traveling quite a bit for work. Being on the road means beating up a keyboard all day in conference rooms and sitting in hotel rooms at night. Instead of turning on the idiot box, I decided to start calling more Bosch shops to find an additional builder. Most shops don’t want to touch it if it’s not a full rebuild or not stock. I’ve heard those excuses more times than I can count. The few shops I found that are able and willing to do the job want too much money for the project. Sound familiar?

But that’s not the end of the story. I finally hit gold while dialing for dollars early Spring 2018! I found a diesel shop within two hours of me that can build pumps, has the right equipment and can meet my price target. I had my wife ship a core to them. After some guidance from Dieselmeken, we now have a builder that offers pricing in line with Dieselmeken, but without the international shipping costs.

I’ve heard from many people who tell me they know someone who can build a pump so they just want to buy a kit. I say, “Good luck with that.” I’m happy to sell it to them, but having the right bench setup for calibration, knowing how to calibrate it (Dieselmeken’s settings), and doing it all for a reasonable price is a tough combination to find. People who buy kits are 100% on their own — no help is available from BenzForce or Dieselmeken. It takes far too much time to work through issues and calibration.

When I started this journey, I never thought it would be so hard to find a shop to simply build a pump. I bet I talked to well over 50 diesel shops during my quest. Finding a Bosch-certified shop that has the right equipment, isn’t afraid of repercussions from Bosch for performance modifications, and can meet my price point means that now BenzForce can facilitate pump builds. I’m certain that this can lower the overall cost of the Mercedes community’s builds. I call it a victory, and a hard-won victory at that!

If you want to learn more, drop me an email!

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