jnowak@monsol.c

I'm wondering the opinion of MB Techs on the 10,000 mile oil change interval. Can I expect to get 200-300,000 miles out of my engine with this long of an interval (using the approved oil)? I'm old school and used to 3,000 mile intervals. I know that Synthetic is designed to last longer, but 10,000 miles?

Bahnstormer

I usually go right about in the middle of those two extremes, every 6,000 miles or so.

superangrypenguin

Do a used oil analysis. I used to think your way until I got a UOA done. 10000 miles is a very safe interval. In fact for those of you who push 15000 miles and are NOT using direct injected engines you are also fine.

My comments above are for non Di motors only. Everything gets thrown out the door for those of you with DI engines.

I used to do oil changes every 3000 miles too. That said with a 8 quart sump capacity in my car and with this engine it just runs forever.

ezshift5

Is there evidence out there showing some sort of relationship vis-a-vis Direct Injection and oil life?


ez

superangrypenguin

Yes. Fuel dilution is an issue with all direct injected engines. Some are worse than other. Fuel dilution affects oil volatility and also decreases the flashpoint of said oil. When that number decreases oil is more volatile and this more of the oil ends up vaporized and ends up caked on your intake valves.

MB engines are not nearly as bad as early production Audi engines. In fact early Audi RS4 engines would shred certain 50200 approved oils in 3000 miles.

Again I would urge those of you with Di engines to get your engine oil tested. Otherwise there is no real way to know how long you should be changing out your oil.

This is also a reason I laugh when automakers t out fuel economy improvements with DI engines. Yes that is true but more frequent oil changes, intake cleans etc all but negate the benefits.

Now for those who lease then we'll they are ahead. For us enthusiasts that love our cars. . Well... And keep them forever? Just kill me now.

ezshift5

Yes.

SAE reports - - - Publications Technical Papers 2015-01-0967

Thanks 'penguin......


ez

superangrypenguin

This whole topic can easily be summarized and addressed by potential car owners in the following method (I am using this method as we speak).

In CY2012, I was faced with a decision. Do I buy the C300 W204 right then and there because it was the last year of PFI engines? Yes, I did do that, and I'm happy I did that.

Now in CY2018, what do I do? Do I continue avoiding DI? If so, the number of cars I can buy just dropped by a factor of a LOT. If I avoid a car with DI engines, there goes the entire BMW/Audi/Mercedes range. I'm stuck with, what, a Subaru Legacy? (sigh - great car, but not what I'm looking for)
Or, do I buy a dual injected engine? Well, Lexus has this in their LS460 (2017<) and LS500 (2018-). The problem with Lexus cars is that they don't do well, rust wise. It's too soon to tell re: LS 500, but LS460 rust concerns were pretty common vs German rivals.

Well, I've come to the conclusion that I can't avoid DI, and I won't buy a Lexus, so I will try and buy a car that doesn't seem to suffer from DI effects. MB engines don't seem to suffer from serial carbon buildup issues, nor do they indicate to me a serial issue with respect to fuel dilution and or raping engine oils for fun. BMW engines still (N54 and others) suffer from excessive fuel dilution/carbon buildup on intake valves), and Audi engines seem to have resolved this issue (2.0 TSI engines onwards).

So it comes down to MB/Audi for me. That said, Audi burned me once, and with MHEV engines now being rolled out as the latest and greatest...do I take the leap? Oh hell, ask me once a day for the next week and I'll give you a different answer every time

What is clear to me is I am avoiding BMW and, sadly, Lexus. I don't understand how in CY2018 Lexus cars still cannot resist rust like the German ones can, but rust is a real cancer where I live.

The only real way to manage DI cars is this.

1) Do oil changes often (and get a UOA as well)
2) Stick to top tier fuel. No, gas doesn't go past the intake valves at all, but top tier determine has more PEA in it, or a PEA type of detergent which survives combustion and may assist with minimizing intake valve buildup)
3) Buy extended warranty
4) Budget for carbon intake valve cleaning (manually or using walnut blasting).

There's no other way to deal with this crap!

S-Prihadi

My E400 with M276 DELA 30 engine, in my country ( Indonesia ), the oil change life in the dashboard computer is reduced to 8,000KM or +-5,000 miles. All cars in my country has oil life reduced by their respective brands.
I myself do 5,000KM oil change or +-3,000 miles or 6 months, whichever comes first.

This is not due to DI , but we used to have poor fuel quality and very very bad traffic. In fact only this year we can get Euro4 gasoline and diesel and it is not available whole country level, this is from the the state owned oil company called Pertamina. Funny is, even Shell ( private company ) in Indonesia do not have Euro4 fuel yet per Aug 2018, because by law there is no regulation yet for Euro4. Next year the regulation of Euro4 will be in place, so I heard.
My car usually average 20 - 23 km/h as per trip computer. So engine hours is high for a typical short distance .....for my location.

Engine oil life is actually hours based not distance based.
At 100 hours , at 23 km/h = 2,300km
At 200 hours , at 23 km/h = 4,600km << this is about as far as I would push, 200 hours engine oil life.

On marines engines and marine generators I maintain, 100 hours or 1 year maximum. Be it diesel or gasoline ones. But they do cruise/loaded at 70 to 75% engine load all the time.

Oil and oil filter is cheap compared to engine cost, not worth savings a fluid as important as "blood".

superangrypenguin

Are you absolutely sure this is the norm? Because if so, what is the oil change interval of a Chevy Impala? 500 miles?

*Please note, I am not poking fun at anything or making a joke here, I am being 100% serious. I clearly lack the knowledge of fuel technical terms versus you, but here in Canada, (and the US), our fuel is actually pretty low grade too. It even has so much sulfur in it that most DI engines can't run in the super high compression range. I am unfamiliar if this exists on MB, but Audi engines in Canada cannot run in stratified mode because of our terrible sulphur content and the damage it would cause to the environment if that happened. (this is knowledge from 7 years ago. I don't know if this has changed).

8000km is insane, and you may absolutely be right but I just wanted to double check. In Canada, depending on where you live, it's as hot as Texas and as cold as...*****? And even here our oil change interval on the W204 is....wait, for it...

20,000KM. That's down from early production models of 25,000 kilometers!!

S-Prihadi

Nope, not joking. See my dashboard. That is oil change reset done when I changed oil last week


Even in the data card it has this 8000KM option.

No matter how bad you think your US fuel is, it wont be even close to my country's fuel bad quality. 3rd world country sucks, as always.

superangrypenguin

WOW!!! That's INSANE!

Thank you for sharing. This must be my biggest "aha!" moment ever in my participation on MBWorld!!

Demvang

Every 8k miles here.

superangrypenguin

8,000 miles makes sense to me. In the case of the above, we're talking 8,000 kilometers on a 8 quart sump which is basically just like the oil change intervals of domestic (US) cars in the 1990s!!

dol4er

It is 15,000km here or 1 year - whichever comes first. I usually replace it when 1 year passes or around 10,000km.

I daily drive in heavy city traffic with 22-25km/h average speed. I always try to have some fun and push it in the high rev range whenever I can and whenever the engine has reached its operating temperature.

I do not know about the deterioration of the characteristics of the oil but it looks clean yellow almost till the end of the service interval (8-9 months out of 12 months).

xsever

When I lived in Canada, I used to change oil (Mobil 1 0w40) every 13,000 miles as per MB's directives.

When I moved to Lebanon, with the lower fuel quality and the crazy crazy traffic which causes very lower average speeds, yes the engine ends up running higher hours than usual versus higher mileage. So, the MB dealer here reduces the oil change interval to 5,000 km (~3000 miles). I never do any work at the stealership, but that's what all mechanics do here: 5,000 km oil changes even if it's synthetic.

So since my last oil change, I decided to keep track of the hours and kms. So far, I'm at 36h44m and 1,203 km. That's 33 km/h.

So a 5,000 km oil change at 33 km/h is equivalent to a 7,500 km oil change at 50 km/h. At 60, it's 9,000.

superangrypenguin

Appearances can be deceiving. By the time I do an oil change it's black but the samples come back as. .. Try extending your drain next time...

edgalang

10k mile oil change has been the norm for years. I did 10k mile oil change intervals on my previous car (2002 Acura TL-S) and took it to 190k miles before selling it to someone in need. I do 10k mile oil change on my DI engine W204 with no issues (currently 105k miles), 10k mile oil change on my wife's Lexus hybrid with no issues and it's even listed in the service manual. Granted I only use top tier oil and gas, but as long as you stay within spec, I don't expect anyone having issues.

superangrypenguin

I also don't think 10K for the DI 204 is an issue given the fact that this has been out for so long. That said I'm wondering if you've ever done a UOA (for selfish reasons since I'm a nerd)?

ChazThePhoenix

we just got our w204 and have not even put 2k miles on it yet, but I can tell you my DI volkswagen engine (3rd gen 1.8t) has been doing fine on every 10k. No carbon build up and it takes 87 octane

superangrypenguin

1.8t engines use port injection ....

edgalang

...not for the Merc....never felt the need for one since I've been on 10k miles changes for over 20 years now. Although I was curious after hitting 100k miles (recently requested a kit online).

superangrypenguin

Pls do report back! I am dying to know!

10k mile changes are great but your 20 years of experience isn't fully with Di engines so would love to see the results!!

edgalang

Thanks for always being an ***. I take your experience with DI with a grain of salt as well. Good day to you.

superangrypenguin

W(here)TF did this come from? If you don't want to share, then don't. My comment above was to ask for a dataset that you were allegedly going to get and to share it with the broader community.

S-Prihadi

Fuel dilution - Direct Injection

Actually diesel is a direct injection or indirect* injection ( *older tech, use glow plug ), still the same though...as both method, its injector position is in the the combustion chamber.
Like this : http://www.dieselhub.com/tech/idi-vs-di.html

In diesel the worry of fuel dilution into lubricating oil comes from leaky injector, BUT its most harmful effect is that, leaky fuel will wash off lubricating oil from the liner.
The effected cylinder with leaky injector may seized, due to no ( washed off ) lubrication.

In a mechanical diesel injector ( not common rail ), it will spray fuel at approx 200 bar ( 2,900 psi ) by using spring + needle valve which opens at that pressure, not using electronic control solenoid.
Like this :

For fuel dilution concern, we need to imagine our gasoline direct injection injector as a small valve. It should open ONLY when it is supposed to open and it should not leak.
If it leaks, then we get the fuel dilution, but as I described earlier, the real danger is not the fuel dilution per se, but the washing off of lubricant in the liner of the cylinder with leaky injector..which keep pissing fuel to the cylinder liner.

Having an injector inside the combustion chamber is a stressful condition for the injector as each combustion cycle is the same as an explosion.
Even our exhaust valve will be worn out over time, so will the injector. The question is, when will our GDI injector start to be leaky before it will die ?
I would hope my GDI injector will die in a valve closed position, rather than it is still running...... but a leaky one.
Dead injector is probably due to the failure of the magnetic coil inside the solenoid valve.
Leaky injector is probably due to worn out parts in the valve.

In a mechanical Bosch diesel injector, I usually change the needle valve ( injector tip) and adjust the spring opening value of 200 BAR ( 2,900 psi ) per 1,000 hours for medium speed marine engine, because back then our diesel fuel was horrible.
About 2,000 hours I calibrate/service the diesel injection pump. Inside this pump are the plungers which meters the fuel to the injectors.
For medium speed land based diesel generators 2,000 hours is still very do-able for its injector tip life, as they will run constantly at 1,500 RPM to produce 50Hz.


I think if we want to use a gasoline DI engine for a very long time, set a target to test or replace all the injectors at a specified mileage/interval.

Imagine this, your spark plugs. Will it be clean after say 30,000KM ? No way, there will traces of carbon built up and electrode wear. There is no such thing as 100% clean combustion.
If our GDI injector micro holes are blocked by carbon built up, its performance will be reduced too. Remember that our GDI injector spray fuel mist finer than the MPI injector, it is more delicate.

How about wear and tear on the GDI injector internal open/close valve body mechanism ?
Simple math. Say a 100,000 KM engine in my environment of 23KM per hour average. That is 4,348 engine hours.
Say average engine RPM is 2,000. That means 4,348 x 2,000 = 8,696,000 . This is the amount of open/close cycle each injector in my car will need to do if it survive 100,000 KM.
8.6 million cycle is a lot for a mechanical device to open/close a fuel flow of such high pressure of a GDI.

Since none of our cars can be driven in exact 100% same condition, our fuel quality is different and driver habits on the throttle can not be the same too, taking for granted that Tom's GDI injectors can get away trouble free for X hours and
Dick's GDI injector would have to be the same X hours, that won't happen.

I plan to sell my 2014 E400 on its 8th year. That will be year 2022. I hope to own no car older than 10 years.
By then the E400 would have done extra approx 60,000KM at best and total +-71K with today's 11K on the odometer.

If the important car electronics do not go bad on me, mechanically 71,000 KM is not a big deal at all.
In my country, Audi transmission controller module ( TCM ) often goes bad. I supposed its the heat due to crazy traffic jam and the position of the TCM... that is what the mechanics are blaming.

M276 DELA 30 engine injector is supposedly this number : A2780700687 and this injector is used on so many MB engines.
Here is a guy who tear open the injector

If this price is correct : Only Euro 305 per 4 units, it is cheap. NEW.
https://www.tornau-motoren.de/en/eng...-m270-910.html

US price is much more painful : NEW not recond unit, US$305 each
https://parts.mbfm.com/p/Mercedes-Be...780700687.html

If the cost to me per injector is say US$200 x 6 units = US$1,200 , I do not mind changing all 6 per 50,000KM in my environment, or even sooner at 40,000KM.
On my engine it is easy to remove all the injectors, so labor would be US$200 at best. Add 2 high pressure fuel lines at US$150 for both which supposedly we need to change too, all for US$1,550
US$1,550 / 40,000KM = 3.8 cents per kilometers, is about the same price as my Mobil1 0W-40 + oil filter + labor charge per 5,000 KM.

This E400 is my first DI engine. In all my previous gasoline cars with low pressure injectors hiding inside intake manifold, 100,000KM is no issue.
An electronic injector being inside a combustion chamber is a working condition probably 10x worse than being inside an inlet manifold.

....