jayelighter

I have a 2009 SL63 with 11,000 miles. I noticed the "Top-Off Coolant" light was illuminated so added coolant. At first I added one liter, but had to purchase more as it remained low. After adding a second liter, I pulled the dip stick and saw that the oil was milky and overfilled by some six inches. In disbelief, I started the engine and the exhaust quickly began to billow thick white smoke. I had the car transported to a local shop who drained the contaminated oil from the pan. They them poured water into the radiator and it quickly exited the oil drain plug hole.

The car ran perfectly prior to the low coolant light illuminating. At only 11K miles is it possible that a head bolt broke? And, if so, would the coolant run through the radiator and engine into the pan that quickly? Is this engine equipped with a water cooled oil cooler?

HELP! Please.

Patel

bhamg

And WTF is the popcorn supposed to mean? Makes me wanna hope your motor grenades and I can "popcorn you."

roadkillrob

please type headbolts in the search bar and then report back here - also withdraw between 3000 and 5000 from your bank account to pay for the repair.

jptaylor

Headbolt....I say 98%
Lots of us have been there, sorry my Friend

bhamg

OP take a deep breath and spend some time reading threads in the headbolt sticky. Educate yourself. You'll get lots of good advice here from people who have been there, done that but you still need to be able to ask the right questions as well as be able to evaluate the answers and make a determination as the the right course of action for your situation. GL.

jptaylor

....and if willing to tackle it yourself I did my own for around $600 iirc

jayelighter

At 11K, with no running issues at all? Please say it ain't so. Does this engine have a water-cooled oil cooler that may have failed?

Wiggis

Not what you want to hear, but yes, it's possible (likely even) that a head bolt has given up. Given the cooling system is under pressure, it's likely to run coolant into the pan pretty rapidly - I've heard of engines hydro locking due to coolant in the cylinders. As far as i'm aware, the oil cooler is air cooled.

The only good news is that you probably stopped running the engine before serious damage occurred. You might get lucky with the repairs.

Please let us know how the repairs work out.

bhamg

The lowest mileage case of headbolt failure that I'm aware of is 7k miles. In the surrounding range of mid-forties seems to be most common for '09's.

jayelighter

Thanks. Looks like no matter how much I don't want this to be true, it is. I think I'll blame it on my wife driving it. Had to be someone's fault.

BLKROKT

True, but regardless of mileage, the number of years that headbolt has been submerged in coolant is the big factor here. Corrosion doesn't really care about miles, although that's a factor in stresses on the bolt head (pressure exerted, heat cycles, etc).

Sorry to hear OP. Hopefully the HG isn't compromised and you can do them one-at-a-time and save yourself a chunk of change. If you only billowed smoke for a couple seconds, you might get lucky here and not need to tear the engine down.

Savage-wp

Sorry to bear OP.
It's almost certainly headbolts, or a headbolts that has failed. As the others said, go read in the headbolts thread. It's a poor design which fails over time.
Judging by the fact that the water is mixing so rapidly with the oil, I'm pretty sure your head gaskets are gone as well.
Get the new design headbolts, head gaskets, and whatever other smaller gaskets you may require, and you should be good to go again.

roadkillrob

Unfortunately once coolant is in the oil, the cheaper easier replace one headbolt at a time option is not an option and the heads need to come off and have the head gaskets done.

Sounds like a nice low milage car, so once this is done, you should be good for quite some time and have one of the larger more likely repairs out of the way.

bhamg

While true, IMO that's only part of the story. I believe pitting, which is more cavitation-related is as, or more of a factor in headbolt breakage than generalized surface corrosion. I really wish we could compare more broken headbolts from various failures.

Patel

Wont happen I knew about headbolts before I bought my 13

At this point it's kinda humorous people don't know about it for older m156 when dropping so much on a car

glennhl

You have a warped sense of humor!

Patel

.

m a x i m u s

IIRC mine went at about 10k miles. Previous owner had the repair done under warranty and it was MB documented (I called MBUSA to check before I bought it).

Mikegpr03

not only miles but years as well matter. I didn't have an issue with mine but at 80k I said to hell with it let me get it done. Had a friend who is MB tech help me with the tools and labor. The job isn't easy to do but not impossible. It really sucks MB didn't step up and recall all the cars with this issue. Brother good luck with it. If you do I'd go with swapping all parts as well. Not nessasary but recomended.

jayelighter

Thank you. Vey much appreciated.

Vladds

And when you got the old bolts out, how did they look, were they corroded or not? and had you kept the Mercedes antifreeze in the system up to that point?

Jasonoff

Here's what mine looked like about a year ago ~100k km.

Left Bank


Right Bank

Infiniti

Best response I've read in a while 💪🏻


Sorry to hear OP. I am in the same boat as you with more miles and i wonder if I'll get unlucky. Where are you located? If you cant do it yourself you may luck out and find some good help cheap. GL

AMG3.2

Yikes. Sorry to hear OP.