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This could be a major thing for owners of prefacelift cars that thought they were "safe" with the headbolt issue.
To get the forum a little more on topic, a new member Tehvine posted his car with engine number 62768 (over 2000 after the supposed change at 60658) that clearly has old headbolts.
Merc put out a TSB with the exact engine number of the changeover. So how does an engine made two months and 2000 after have a complete set of old head bolts? Would be a great question for Mercedes although I doubt they care now as the engine isn't in any current cars.
Is it possible (as mentioned earlier) that the engine was opened for some reason and old headbolts were used when the head was put back on? This could have happened in 2010/ early 2011 before the TSB was put out.
Very weird indeed. Would be interesting to see if someone else with a car built just after the switch over truly has newer headbolts too...have not seen any reports of failed old headbolts in a car with an engine after 60658 (yet?).
I think this is worthy of a new thread as the headbolt thread is cluttered with data card requests and "does my 2008 really have old headbolts" type posts. I don't think the guy is trolling nothing to gain from a post on page 30 of a cluttered thread.
Last edited by realjones88; 05-13-2017 at 02:18 PM.
I agree. I saw this as well and thought this issue deserved to be brought before a wider audience. Thank you. As I mentioned in that thread, I had really stopped paying attention to this once I moved from an 09 to a 12 and tripped on that by fluke.
Not sure how we will go about getting answers for this, but we should get some.
2012 P31 C63 Coupe Trackrat, 2019 GLE63S Coupe Beast
Here's the real kicker. What if there are 2012's with the old headbolt designs? If they went 2000 engines past the point where they said the changeover occurred in this particular case, why couldn't the number as easily be 10000?
I'm interested to see what's really going on here, as none of it makes sense.
Here's the real kicker. What if there are 2012's with the old headbolt designs? If they went 2000 engines past the point where they said the changeover occurred in this particular case, why couldn't the number as easily be 10000?
Certainly possible. The real conspiracy theory will start if someone else with a later engine has old headbolts too.
I'm going on the assumption that we have not seen any failed headbolts on any cars made after ~July 2010 (at least on the forum). These cars are nearly seven years old now many have 60K+ miles so you'd think if there are old headbolts "out in the wild" someone's would have failed.
Also for the 'datacard says it's safe' 2011 cars no one has posted an old style headbolt failure on a car with an engine after the changeover.
I tend to lean to some shop opening the engine up and not realizing the headbolts are a one time use item. We have some other one time use items in these cars in other apllications e.g. Thrust bolts in the front end.
This is a time where service records would be huge in investigating the situation.
If there are records and new bolts do not show up in the parts list you have to conclude they were not replaced.
2012 P31 C63 Coupe Trackrat, 2019 GLE63S Coupe Beast
Originally Posted by Alex.currie44
I tend to lean to some shop opening the engine up and not realizing the headbolts are a one time use item. We have some other one time use items in these cars in other apllications e.g. Thrust bolts in the front end.
This is a time where service records would be huge in investigating the situation.
If there are records and new bolts do not show up in the parts list you have to conclude they were not replaced.
The OP's engine is past the point where there should have been updated headbolts in there from the factory. So if somebody removed them only to put the old style back in, that's a big problem.
I tend to lean to some shop opening the engine up and not realizing the headbolts are a one time use item. We have some other one time use items in these cars in other apllications e.g. Thrust bolts in the front end.
This is a time where service records would be huge in investigating the situation.
If there are records and new bolts do not show up in the parts list you have to conclude they were not replaced.
If the OPs engine was opened up and stock bolts were put back in, there should have almost been no way to put old style bolts back in. The old style bolts were supposedly out of production and replaced with the new bolts by the time his engine was made. Short of someone having 20 old style bolts sitting around for years and then throwing them in, this is impossible. I say it came from AMG with the old bolts and MB has some explaining to do.
That being said, I had the old bolts with 86k. Mine were in pretty good shape. It almost made me feel bad I changed them out. At least I have peace of mind now though.
Looking at EPC, head bolts A1560160669 "must no longer be used". (Note 414)
No 414 note for the older bolts A1560160469 & A1560160369. In fact, A1560160469 has a note to "exhaust stock of old parts" up to 60024801.
So perhaps the issue only applies to A1560160669?
Regarding having the old bolts post engine 62768 , maybe they added the 414 note after the break-off point?
What I'm thinking is only the specific part that has the (414 note) must no longer be used. Any older part is fine as long it has no (414 note).
Well, just finished the header install last night and nothing looked out of the norm in terms of the drivetrain possibly having been removed, all the hardware looked untouched. Those factory headers don't appear to have ever been removed, so i don't believe the heads have been off. Next time I'm near an MB dealer I'll see if they can pull detailed service records on it. I'm due for a trans service anyways.
Just seems odd that even if it were opened up, someone wouldn't say "huh, these bolts don't match the ones that came out" and give a quick inquiry. The TSB came out in April of 2011. I guess it's possible it's just a series of unfortunate events that got those bolts in this engine, but maybe they were running out the old stock before the changeover and it's a mixed bag. I'm sure most of us have seen the M156 assembly video, surely MB would have records as to when the tooling was switched out to the new fasteners if this was done in the factory.
Also I suspect if others have a similar situation, we'll probably see more reports from DIY'ers whom are knowledgeable around the car. If my valve cover gaskets were hard, some others will likely be due to replace them as well.
I see, I'm curious to see if all the engines after the change over and before yours also has the old bolts or there was some freak mix up when building yours specifically.
Any update on this? Thinking about purchasing this 2011 that is about 400 engines past the TSB. If the valve covers need to be done, I will certainly be looking to see what's in there.
05-13-2017, 01:43 PM
