kevink2

The following is partly based on the 2012 owners manual.


Viscosity

The 2009 owners manual has the typical MB viscosity chart shown:

2009 Oil Viscosity Chart

This chart has changed abit through the years. The current 2012 chart can be found on page 330 of this large PDF file of the owners manual:

http://www.mbusa.com/vcm/MB/DigitalA...lass-Coupe.pdf

The 2012 chart has the same basic range of -13F to +86F, for the two widest temperature ranges of the 5 groups shown. 0W-30 and 0W-40 have extended useful temperature range, denoted by wide, black arrow heads at the top and bottom of the basic range.

The Mobil 1 229.5 gas engine oils, used by most dealers, has a 5W-40 viscosity rating, and falls in the slightly more restricted range that does not have an extension to the basic lower temperature limit, -13F .

The 2008 C300 4MATIC has run the approved Castrol 0W-30 oil from the 2nd oil change, and appears to be working well, and offers 2mpg better milage on trips than the 5W40 from the dealer pumps.


Approved Oils

These are listed in the MB fluids list, as 229.5 for current models:

mercedes-benz 229.5 approved oils

An excellent oil thread from Glyn:

definitive approved engine oil requirementsl


DIY Changing Oil

Oil Change Mega-Thread



Other Oils, Not Approved

I personally have run transmission and axle oils in my Hard Tracked Rx7, including Redline and Neosynthetic. I ran Amsoil Synthetic grease in my tracked car's front wheel-bearings, back in the 80's when few synthetics existed other than industrial greases. These performed well for me, although I did change them often.

I'm sure some oils from non-approved brands would work fine in the W204. If you want to take that chance, it's your car.


The Magnuson-Moss Act

No warrantor of a consumer product may condition his written or implied warranty of such product on the consumer’s using, in connection with such product, any article or service (other than article or service provided without charge under the terms of the warranty) which is identified by brand, trade, or corporate name

This part of the act seems to weaken the claim that any oil can be used. MB specifies a host of varied brand synthetic oils, and I don't believe Amsoil's statement that just viscosity compliance is all that must be satisfied for MB. Also, many of Amsoil's proud comparitive tests are on oils that are not approved by MB. That seems below Amsoil's good, long reputation.



FWIW, Some of the work I've done in an industrial environment included dealing with lubrication, and lubricant specification. From oil mist systems for ball bearings running at 400F and 5K rpms, where the oil mist was not visible in the clear feed tubing, and specifying experimental boundary condition greases (Krytox + Moly Van-A) with high Timken OK specs for 500F operation of spherical roller bearings at slow speeds.

My favorit project was total design and specifications for the 3-spoke bike wheel that Lance Armstrong won most of this TDF time trials with.

3-Spoke Graphite-Epoxy Bicycle Wheel --look for my name in the screen shot of wheel stresses



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Domm

I'm guessing you read this :

https://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w...sers-here.html

Its nice to have another person specializing in that field voice their advice/opinion. Its valuable information to all DIY-ers.

Glyn M Ruck

Thanks Kevin.

I should note that a number of Polyurea & Lithium Complex synthetic greases manufactured by the industry will give superlative results in high temperature, high load situations & even in the presence of sea water.

EDIT - Any grease that can pass *** FE8 & especially *** FE9 will be unbeatable. We have a grease in our armoury that we can run to 10,000 hours in the FE9 test with no sign of failure in sight. To put this into perspective the best from the German specialty companies like Kluber etc. fail at under 5000 hours. We also run modified versions of these tests at other speeds.

*** FE8. (DIN 51819) and FE9. (DIN 51821)

kevink2

Yes I did, but unfortunately personal issues wound up taking over a simple request for viscosity advise. IMHO:

1) use an approved (or a non-approved high qualiy ACEA A3 oil, if you want to assume some risk and potential hastle).

2) use an XW-30 for mid to northern colder climates, or non-usa equivalents.

3) use an XW-40 for mid to southern climates, esp places where hitting 100F is not unusual.

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kevink2

We had a radial load high temperature rolling element bearing test lab for perfluoropolyether greases need when temps exceeded the normal limits of 51819 and 51821 for synthetic greases, both axial load only tests.

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Glyn M Ruck

Understood! What has always interested me is how well FE 9 correlates to high temp spherical roller bearings lubricant behaviour in Continuous Casting operations in casters from the likes of Voest Alpine, Demag, Doncaster Engineering etc (including cut-off rollers where cooling is usually poor & radiant heat huge) while at the same time giving good correlation with hot-end bearings in high speed paper machines. Also with Cement plant rotary kilns.

Obviously with base oil viscosity adjusted for speed unless you use resins with lower viscosity.

I admit a preference for Polyureas having done a lot of work with Voest.

Of course these products work really well in automotive applications but are overkill unless you have a specific problem.

kevink2

For your app's, what did "high temp" mean? Any experience with Krytox for 400-500F?

Glyn M Ruck

I've universally considered DuPont greases to be excellent but they were never really competition. They play at the fringes & are very good where certain gases & solvents are present as Mobil has great experience in nuclear applications. So to say that I have comparative experience would be wrong.

In high volume heavy industry, Metals, Paper, Cement etc. etc. bearing & gear our main competition has always been Fuchs, Kluber & Carl Bechem.

In modern Steel plants including Stainless where things are well cooled we are talking max temperatures in the 200 deg C area. The worst I had to contend with for many years were crap old Doncaster Engineering concasters where the strand leaves the cooling chamber onto the badly cooled & ventilated cut-off rolls & temperatures were consistently 300 deg C. Re-lube approx every 12 minutes. All bearings C4's obviously.

I have seen considerably higher temperatures measured but with your experience I'm sure you have seen temperatures measured by whatever method, paints, thermography, thermocouples, pyrometers etc. that you don't believe the lubricant is being subjected to. Taking meaningful temperatures in some applications can be really difficult.

kevink2

The job in mind was backup rolls for a wide pair of nip rolls, producing Nomex. The back-up rolls at max od was heated to 700F, and cooled by the water jacket around the outer race to about 190F, prior engineers had drilled a hole down the center of the BU roller shafts to get gearing temps with K type TC's. During a test I ran, plain Krytox and Kluber's best botth did not do well. But the experimental work with the Kry-molyvan-a blew the resr=t away, as I had predicted.

Glyn M Ruck

The damn radiant heat in steel plants tends to fry most directly applied temp measurement devices which leaves you with IR thermography etc

StuttgartUSA

Ha, MB uses Mobil one 30W one of the worst 30W on the market, Amsoil in my car no doubt.

Glyn M Ruck

What nonsense!

StuttgartUSA

Nonsense how? Can you tell my Ruck? Or are you a expert in Oil also. So you know more about the problems with Mobile one 5w-30 sheering after only about 3k miles. I guess recent engineers who just retired from mobile one who say there is a sheering issue with that formula know nothing about the subject. All hail Ruck car and oil, Genius.

Glyn M Ruck

Read this:

https://mbworld.org/forums/clk-class...ghlight=Amsoil

And

https://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w...ghlight=Amsoil

I could not be bothered to repeat myself.

And indeed - I am a tribologist. See my profile.

kevink2

Interesting that you base the performance of all Mobil1 products on a 30W single weight that is not on the MB 229.5 approved list. I would not extrapolate performance in that way, but whatever floats your boat.

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Glyn M Ruck

I think he has the bull by the mammaries. One minute he talks SAE 30 & then 5W-30 & shearing.

Monogrades ~ as they include no VI improver ~ shear very little. Especially VHVI synthetics.

dfordham

Young man, you need to pick your fights more carefully! At least research some of Glyn's posts before you try to vilify him.

Regards,
Don

kevink2

Now that sounds familiar in a bad way .... do you know Max Mosley?

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Glyn M Ruck

Hah! Mr kinky sex with neo **** ladies!

Eickecc

Hey Ruck, I have 9 quarts of mobil1 5w-30. Am I fine to use this for at least one oil change interval?

I would just like to use it since I have it. I'm in Texas, so warmer climate, but it's winter and I'll be changing it again in a few months anyway. '08 C350 Sport. Thanks.