Some owners of V-Class vehicles had already been affected by a smaller recall

Three million Mercedes-Benz cars will be hauled off the road to cut emissions amid growing concerns over pollution from diesel engines, it was announced yesterday.

The cars will be voluntarily recalled across Europe as part of a £195 million plan to reduce levels of deadly nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions.

The “service action” — which is likely to affect hundreds of thousands of cars in the UK — represents the biggest recall of its kind over diesel emissions since Volkswagen pulled 11 million vehicles off the road over the so-called dieselgate scandal.

Daimler, which manufactures Mercedes-Benz, has not been found to use the same type of software for cheating emissions tests discovered in Volkswagen vehicles in 2015. However, the company is the subject of an investigation