DonjuanOriginal

Glyn kicks ***.

Glyn M Ruck

Please note that there is no correlation between additive treat level & TBN. TBN is a measure of alkalinity only.

TBN levels are only really of any relevance in Diesel engines.

xXHotelCrazyXx

Glyn are you an MBZ technician in SA?

Glyn M Ruck

I tend to agree with the 5W-30 recommendation for plain bearing turbos. Thinner product hot. But the OP's car is a V6 NA.

For better cold starts a 5W-30 will not really give any benefit over a 0W-40.

Remember at cold temperatures the 0W is lighter in viscosity than the 5W.

A 0W-40 is only thicker at operating temperatures than a 5W-30. The principle of multigrade oils with VHVI base oils and higher VI improver treat in the 0W-40.

kevink2

If they changed the oil filter, is it possible they collapsed it during installation, putting a restriction in the supply line ?

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Pete7874

Yet if you compare the specs, all the low SAPS oils have a significantly lower starting TBN. If that's not a direct correlation, then I don't know what is.

Pete7874

I still don't see how that would have a huge impact on MPG. And if the collapse caused some major restriction, most likely the oil pressure would be out of line and he'd get a warning message.

kevink2

I just don't think it's a coinsident that they did an oil change, the mpg's went down, and the oil temp jumped 20 deg C. It's like they put 60 wt oil in, but they didn't.

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Pete7874

The temperature gauge he's referring to is coolant, not oil. But yeah, it is strange that it went up. Oil viscosity may affect oil temp, but should not affect coolant temp - that's what the thermostat is for.

benzmodz

For my money, $180 seems dirt cheap. In Australia they charge $700 for the same thing.

Glyn M Ruck

No - I'm a retired oil company man. See my profile.

kevink2

Once warmed up, I thought the oil temp was related to the water temp, but that might be just for race cars.

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kevink2

What he meant was reflashing the ecu/tcu, not the service indicator, to get rid of any bad habits it learned about shifting & driving habbits.

James at this point, I STRONGLY recommend:

1) switch to the approved Castrol 0W-30, especially with winter comming.

2) during oil change, save 1/2 L of old oil, to see what they actually put in
there by oil analysis. This costs about $25 US, by places like blackstone.

With a little luck, the temp will come down, and milage will go up, and we may find the cause of the problem.

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Glyn M Ruck

Sorry Kevin. I see you were talking 0W-30 & not 5W-30 oil amongst your ?W comments. It's a good call for cold condition fuel efficiency. Benz is happy with 0W-40 as a global oil all temp conditions but a 0W-30 will likely give you a little fuel saving over first 20Km's from cold start.

I would still like to understand this large discrepency in fuel consumption. That's not viscosity influence.

Glyn M Ruck

You miss the point. I can add some high overbase synthetic calcium sulphonate etc to a low SAPS oil (sulfated ash, phosphorus-sulfur) & they will still be low SAPS low treat, but high TBN.

Benz stipulates that no one product shall claim meeting both 229.5 & 229.51. They imposed an ash clamping limit to ensure this.

229.51 <0.8% sulphated ash
229.5 >0.8% ~ 1.6% sulphated ash

While some additives are ashless, sulphated ash still gives a good idea of additive treat level. Not TBN.

In essence low SAPS oils give away some engine protection to give added protection to Cat converters & particulate filters. It's a trade off. On top of this in the US we have ILSAC GF4 to contend with. There are additional Zinc & Phos limits mandated by ILSAC GF4. This further reduces valvetrain protection. Benz likes non low SAPS products with decent zinc levels in their gasoline engines even though they have roller rockers. They are also fanatical about HTHS ~ all to protect the valvetrain.


Read my posts #33 & #36 here:

https://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w...highlight=ZDDP

kevink2

Ya Glyn, I thought your 1st response missed the point.

One thing I've learned about the SAE J300 viscosity grades, it for any winter oil spec, 0W, 5W, etc, is that the SAE cold cranking ratings (ASTM D5293) just specify a max viscosity at a specified low temp. The actual value can be much lower.

So look at the 0W-30 vs 0W-40, the max rating is 6200 cp @ -35C. But you can have a better rating of 5500 and it's still a 0W-X oil. Point being all 0W oil cold ratings are not the same, so I have 5W-30 oils with better cold prop's than a 5W-40. I don't have data for the Castrol 0W-30 vs M1 0W-40.

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Glyn M Ruck

Sorry - I misread your post. Yes you are correct. To do a proper evaluation you need to plot the exact formulations on a viscosity graph vs. the ambient temperature at which you are starting the vehicle. It's the only way to know what the engine is really seeing. Very few vehicles are starting at -35 deg.

Sometimes trying to simplify things on a forum leads to comments being less accurate than intended.

Big Daddy

I have gotten a little sick and tired of being ripped off in Australia They charge $930 do do it here
To do the service yourself costs less than a hundred dollars for filters and oils
The hardest part is disposing of the used engine oil.
MB quoted me $3.5K to fit a towbar which can be done for $500 including lights and reprogramming the computer.
Quoted $2.3K to replace brake disks and pads, can get them sent from Europe and do them myself for a quarter of that price.
Has my car broken into and had the small quarter glass smashed. MB wants 1.7K to replace. Windscreens O"Brien want $395

Glyn M Ruck

Benz in Aus is a real rip off on spares etc. SA is bad enough but not like Aus.

whtclk

A service A usually runs me about $1300 in Calgary. I look at it as the price of owning and maintaining a Mercedes.

Carsy

Old sump oil is great to keep the white ants out of your fence & posts , also for preserving your verandah boards.

You can also paint your poultrys legs to control scaly leg mites !! & it helps to ignite green heaps of garden prunings!

Don't waste it

Glyn M Ruck

You might get away with that in Aus LOL. In SA or USA you would be prosecuted.

Big Daddy

MB charge 250 bucks an hour per mechanic. two mechanics for one service is $500 ++ My previous C class was written off after a minor accident because replacing the Air bags alone was worth more than the car.
Just recently according to a TV report, a dealer tried to charge $4,000 to service a Volkswagen Golf.
Me, Ive got the tools, time, service manual, knowledge and access to spares from Europe and it saves me a fortune

kevink2

Status update?

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Glyn M Ruck

What in heavens name do two mechanics do servicing a C Class? It's a one man job. There is very little to do even at a B service.