Aboshi

Hi everyone

I have been lurking the forums for the last few weeks gathering as much info as I can, and I have to say everyone here seems super friendly and helpful!

/start wall of text

So as the title states I just picked up a 2011 c300 with 7k miles on it, only one catch... The motor was popped (I'll get to that later in the post)
I did know this when buying it though.

I seem to think I got a pretty good deal on this car except the fact it will have a salvage title on it (I really dont care though) I wond up paying $14,500 shipped to the door.When it arrived I was like OH DAMN this is gonna be some serious $$$ to fix up (going to be my summer project) well after taking delivery of the car I noticed the lower cross strut brace on the lower right side was cut in half, this made the tire dangle off the car and then popped the outside axle out of the housing and the bearings were lost... Mercedes dosent even sell the bearings for the axel (inside where the boot is).
new axle $1200, new cross strut brace $278 I bought the brace new but found a used axle with 40k miles on it for $281 so I didn't feel I was getting raped with that much lower price! So after sourcing parts to get it so I can actually move the car around without a forklift I moved onto the motor. So the story of this car is pretty simple, car was bought 3/15/11 then the person was smart enough to drive through a deep puddle during hurricane Irene 7/20/11 and blew the motor. I tested the motor to see if it would spin and it did but piston #1 wouldn't move so I knew the rod was broken ;(
I was really hoping before I cracked open the oil pan that the rod would have broke very low by the crank (this wasn't the case). The rod broke directly in the middle, and spun around a few times and punched a hole on each side of the block So from there I call up Mercedes to source a new block...
This is where it I wanted to seriously scream because what I thought would turn out to be maybe a $4k job wasn't even the case... So yeah I call up mercedes and say ok I need a short block for a 2011 c300 sport 4matic, the stealership comes back with a quote and goes $21,500. I said you have to be out of your damn mind! thats more then half the cost of the car when it was new! So after going back and forth for nearly an hour to try to get them to sell me a short block they wouldn't because they said they never offered it on a 2011! So now im thinking humm what can I do because I sure as hell am not shelling out $21k and I have already tried to source a 2011 motor from every junk yard there is but no one has them, so then I had an ah ha moment and said to myself I'll just get a 2010 motor
So I called up some junk yards within 100 miles form me and I found a 2010 RWD motor for $6,500, but before I went to go pick it up I get the VIN and call Mercedes again to see if I can just swap the parts off of my motor to this new one just to make sure 100% they all use the same block. To my surprise all of the c300's till 2011 use the same exact block between all models, the things that change are the obvious stuff like the oil pan, and motor mounts. but thats about it! So then the parts dept. at Mercedes say Oh yeah we can sell you a 2010 short bock but its $10,500 but if you bring us back your core its only $6,300. So I said can you give me a better deal, they came back with $5,800.
Not a bad deal but I said forget it ill just go with a complete motor for $6,500.
So I took a short trip to NJ and picked up this 2010 RWD motor (had no motor mounts, and 3 of the coils were cracked so I told them I would give them $5,800 and they agreed
So now I just have to swap over my 4matic engine mounts, and oil pan then I should be good to go.

So I have plenty of stuff off a 7k mile engine if anyone needs less the short block unless you want to get it welded up for use (I will get some pics of it for everyone to see I just need to run down to the shop where the car is)

So for a list of parts if anyone needs:

Heads
Headers
Valves
(3) Coils
Crank Shaft
Flywheel
Water Pump
Oil Pump
Cams Shafts
Valves
(5) Pistons w/rings
(5) Piston rod w/bearings
RWD Wiring Harness - (has a few broken connectors)
Timing Chain
All Sensors
RWD Oil Pan
(6) Fuel Injector
MAF
Intake Manifold

I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff but its the entire engine just let me know what you need and I'll pull it off

/end wall of text

elcid79

Do you have the plastic cover on the top. Some yahoo spilled oil on mine and gummed it all up. I am a bit of a perfectionist and would love to have a clean engine compartment. Let me know.

elcid79

I doubt it matters but mine is a 2011 C300 4matic

1DarkChaos

Man if I were you and you had to do a motor swap I will do a C63 engine swap since it really won't cost THAT much more from a junkyard but props for doing this!

elcid79

Aboshi

elcid79:
If you are looking for the plastic shroud that covers the the belts (snaps in to the front of air box) I need the on I have for myself

I was fully thinking of doing the c63 but then I thought of how much more $$ it would have cost and the time that myself or a mechanic would have to put into it and it wouldn't be worth it because its a major swap computers and all

I will try to document as much as I can and I will also post part #'s when I'm finished (hopefully this thursday) so if anyone else has had these typ of issues it will be easier to track down parts
I had to have a mechanic do all the bigger stuff because I dont have a lift, or engine hoist but I dont think he will be charging me a crazy amount of $ because he doesn't have that much time into the car but labor here in NY is at min. $95 an hour... so I figure form start to finish with the guy I'm using it will be $1200-2k and thats not too bad.

Oh I also forgot in the first post of the list of things that were muffed up/missing. When I got the car it had no battery and the prefuse box was disconnected along with all the coils missing. So when I put a new battery in nothing worked and I was saying to myself they blew the rear SAM and I went nuts on the transport Co. because this guy told me he tried to use a jump box on the car to start it from the auction lot! I said to him soooooo you tried to jump a car that was clearly hydrolocked and you knew this? so yeah anyway he left the key in the on position so I thought for sure the SAM was toast. Turns out this Ra-Tard hooked up his jump box backwards and blew the 80 amp pre fuse! Much better then him blowing the SAM though, still cost me $185 but if this has happened to anyone else I know Mercedes wont even sell that 80 amp fuse so I will look up the fuse through digikey or somewhere else so if tat every happened to anyone they dont need to go wasting $185. If my mechanic would have told me before ordering the entire box I would have just got the fuse myself, but whats done is done ;(

MBRedux

Wow, either you're crazier than me, and have tons of free time to do this or you intend to flip this car for a small profit once finished. Which is it?

Aboshi

The car is done this afternoon
I need to just keep it for a year or two because I have a baby due in november and I only have a jeep wrangler left out of all my toys and its not baby safe what so ever ;(
But I might just put it up for trade for a newer FJ if I find it to be too small, or sell it. I cant imagine I would get more then I put into it with a salvage title even though the car is pristine but who knows...

I should be picking the car up sometime tomorrow if I can get out of work early enough (or prey for rain/lightning so I dont have to work)

Aboshi

Ok finely picked the car up yesterday, heres some pics
Oh and the swap went very smoothly! Just had to use the wiring harness off the 4matic on the rwd motor, also the motor mounts, and oil pan. On a side note do not use aftermarket ignition coils on a 2011 w240 because it will instantly spit out a check engine light... There is no data that feeds back to the computer with the aftermarket pos coils so now I need to go to the stealership and buy factory ones ;(
I'm not sure if aftermarket coils would be fine on pre 2011 but why risk it...

Time for pics

AkaSigFreak

Nice! So what was the total including labor or did you install it yourself?

Aboshi

If I had a lift I would have just done all the work myself and saved $3,100 ;(
All of the parts including the engine, axle, lower control brace, pre fuse box, battery, and all 6 ignition coils was around $7,000.
So in total I paid $14,500 for the car shipped to the door, $7,000 in parts and $3,100 in labor.
Little bit more then I expected in labor but nothing I can do about that now seeing I had no lift ;(

So in total $24,600 for a c300 with 7k miles on it is not a bad deal what so ever
Plus This car looks like it just left the showroom

Its a damn shame I needed a new block because this job would have been silly cheap if that rod didn't blow 2 holes in the block ;(

TonyAlcala

Hello, do you have parts for sell now? im very interested on the crankshaft with damper.

LILBENZ230

This is a pretty old thread.. I doubt he'll respond.

Even so, I nearly fell out of my chair when I read the final cost. $24,600 for a Benz that is basically worthless (salvaged). I paid $900 more than that for my 2011 with 11,500 miles not a scratch/mark on or in it, full warranty til 8/2015 and a spotless history.

TonyAlcala

I HOPE HE DOES I ONLY NEED THE CRANKSHAFT AND IM DONE, I BOUGHT A SIMILAR SALVAGE ONE WITH CLEAN TITLE FOR $9000.AND I JUST HAVE PUT ALMOST $2000 ON IT AND ITS SITTING THERE WAITING FOR A CRANKSHAFT. IF SOMEBODY HAS THE CRANKSHAFT PLEASE REPLY THIS POST.