flamecrow

So I bought my 2009 4Matic Sport used with 150k miles. I immediately drained the oil from the oil pan at the bottom of car and put in 7.5 quarts of Mercedes 5w40 oil.

I'm changing the oil at 160k tonight and I'm now confused. The dipstick reading was sitting at 70% (my bad for not checking often or do any topping off). I used an extractor this time from the dipstick tube, it only extracted about 5 quarts of oil and I was extremely worried that I've leaked or burned that much oil over 10k miles.

Being paranoid, I put the car on jack stands (so the car is not leveled) and drained it the old fashioned way through the oil pan drain bolt, it came pouring out. After the dripping became slow, about 10-15 seconds between drips, I jacked the car up even higher and more oil came pouring out. I repeated this until I could no longer jack the car any higher and the dripping became extremely slow/stopped dripping. I used the extractor again to collected the extra oil I just drained to measure the total oil drained. The total oil reading ended up about 7 quarts so I'm relieved I've only burned 0.5 quarts over 10k miles for such an old car.

Now, I'm confused why it drains more when I have the car on jack stands or floor jack. Is my dipstick reading off? Is my oil pan not leveled? Is this why the extractor wasn't able to extract all the oil? I do know that the original owner recently had the motor mounts replaced... could a poor job there cause this?

Adi-Benz

Don't know if it's a c300 and in the US but most of us stick to Mobil-1 0W-40 and 8.5qts for the 4matic version as per manual

superangrypenguin

If you're just sticking the extractor tube into the dipstick that is not the approved way of extracting oil and it MAY be the reason why you're running into this.

You need an adapter like this: http://67.222.107.5/products/hoses-a...adapter-detail

JettaRed

iTrader: (1)

According to AP18.00-P-0101CWZ, extraction through the dipstick tube IS the correct method. Again, this is for a M276 3.5L engine, so the method may be different if he has a different engine.

xsever

The MB manual for my 2012 C300 4MATIC with the M272 engine says 7.4 US qt (7.0 l). Where did you get the 8.5 qts from? Which manual?

The OP's car is a 2009 which means it has the same M272 engine. The way to get the entire oil drained is to lift the car at the front and drain the oil since the 4MATIC front axles run through the oil pan which makes it impossible for the extractor to get all the oil out. I've tested this many times.

flamecrow

Ok thank you, this is good to know. I thought I was going crazy because I always thought draining the oil leveled would get all of it out and/or with an extractor.

paulo744

You need to evacuate the oil without putting the plastic tube deep inside the oil dipstick. Using the Mercedes tool or similarly sealing the oil the dip stick top, to create a good vacuum inside the dipstick tube, then you can extract most of the oil. Weird, but it works correctly.