Humble apologies for coming in and writing in English on your forums. I just really need some help and am not sure where to turn. If anyone would read this and have any ideas, please feel free to answer in German, I will put google translate to work and hopefully make sense out of it
At my work in northern Sweden we maintain a couple of iceroads crossing a lake in the winter. One of our old vehicles was getting old and tired so last year we bought a Mercedes Sprinter 319cdi to replace it. With a press of a button we are supposed to get 4x4 drive (35% front and 65% back), just as we have it with our smaller Nissan pickup trucks.
But here is where we can't get the Sprinter to work for us, standing still on raw ice (with good studded tires all around) trying to get going with a bit of resistance, all we get is the rear wheels spinning endlessly without the front wheels ever helping out.
We have tried to talk to our retailer and have gotten suggestions ranging from that the 4-wheel drive doesn't engage until after 20 seconds of spinning, or that it won't kick in until the engine revs to over 2000 rpms, to that the studs in the rear wheels makes grooves in the ice so that it is only rubber against ice and that somehow prevents the 4-wheel drive to engage and also that us installing a snow-plow hook-up to the front of the Sprinter made it too front heavy stopping the 4-wheel drive to engage(we did put weights in the back to even this out without any improvements).
The latest message we are getting from our retailer is that this is how it is constructed and that the vehicle need to get rolling for the 4-wheel drive to function.
Anyone have any idea what is going on? That the Sprinter needs to be rolling for the 4-wheel drive to work sounds strange to me, isn't that one of the times you really need it?
Our guess is that it is the computer that is not doing its job controlling the spinning wheels and sending power to the wheels that do grip... Any ideas and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
