I'm not going to name any names here so don't bother asking. I'm not mad anymore - it took me a month to cool off and write this - but I need to figure out what's going on. Long story short, I received my car back from somewhere with close to 15 LITERS of oil in the sump. Unknown for how long it had been that way, how it had been driven that way, or how it got that way. Only that I received the car back with strange persistent misfires on cylinders 6, 7 and 8 that wouldn't resolve through the regular diagnostic decision tree (plugs, coils, MAF, O2 sensors, etc). This is a car whose engine had been running perfectly without any problems, not even a lifter tick, since I bought it. I maintained it to the absolute highest standard, and I'm sad that I'm in this spot and my trust has been broken.

I took it through the gears two or three times to the top of third, and put 50 miles on it before I figured something was really wrong and shut it down to start taking it apart. The first thing I did was check the oil and it was a good 8" above the max fill line. Drained immediately, it was black and a mix of new and old. A Hengst oil filter was shoved and smashed into the oil filter cap, twisted and basically destroyed - probably let some bad stuff through the engine like that. Saw a couple glitters in the folds, first time ever there. Oil catch can was totally FULL, first time ever for that too. So the engine was clearly pushing a lot of oil through the rings and valve seals and who knows what else with all the additional pressure from all that oil. Put some nice Motul 300V and a new OEM oil filter in, haven't started it back up yet, that was a month ago.

I ordered a bunch of parts. First the PCV valve is likely toast. Have MAF sensors, new plugs, going to take the intake off to clean, basically get it down to the heads to inspect.

Sent the oil I pulled out away to Blackstone for analysis (report below). The results don't look good. This is a car that has 7 years of impeccable Blackstone reports to go on, for every oil change, and this new report clearly shows something is wrong. Extremely high iron (cylinders, shafts), high potassium (coolant?), high silicon (dirt).

Pics of all that below.


So... what now? Do I change the PCV and pull the intake, change the MAFs, O2s, plugs and gaskets, put it back together and hope for the best? Compression and leak down tests in order at this point? Or am I better off having the engine torn down to really closely inspect for damage?

The people responsible have refunded me some amount to carry out the above, and I sure don't want them working on it again. Would you send it back to have them tear down and rebuild out of an abundance of caution? On their dime? I'm guessing valve seals and/or rings. I also don't know what happens when the crankshaft churns around in that much oil at high RPM - crank bearings too? Sounds like a full rebuild top and bottom end?

And if there are any lawyers here, please feel free to chime in on any legal recourse. These are good people who just really fuked up and are trying to do the right thing, but I don't know where that goodwill ends for them voluntarily and I'd love to know what my legal options are.

Thanks guys

@Diabolis could really use your input here buddy thanks





















At least she still looks good

 

Jim...FFS man, I'm sorry this happened to your car. This was a gut-punch to read.

Some thoughts:

-The oil filter being twisted isn't a smoking gun, IMHO. I've been noticing this in the last year on both my SL63 and a few services I've done on a friend's E63. Hengst filter, OE Genuine filter, OE filter cap, Weistec filter cap, torqued to spec, tightened just to the cap bottoming out...same result with that twist every time. I'm suspecting a bad manufacturing run.

-While the potassium number itself is nothing extreme, its sudden appearance is very concerning. I'd pressure test the cooling system before starting the car again, and if you do run the car again, I would recommend testing the coolant for combustion vapors (any simple kit will do).

-These engines are pretty tough, especially the bottom end. If it didn't grenade while running (like from a bad injector failure situation) there's a decent chance you minimized the damage.

-I'd be hesitant to do a compression test as an early step. Might be safer to remove the belt + plugs and try to turn the engine over by hand first. If the rotating assembly is turning over smoothly / not binding, that would be a good sign.

-In terms of trusting that shop to fix the situation, it's tough. It is an incredibly careless error to fill the engine without realizing the oil wasn't drained, doubled-down on by not checking the oil at any point afterwards. You had a documented healthy engine before this.

-Before you tear into it yourself, I would advise you decide whether you want them to be a part of the solution or if you want to pursue damages against them. If the latter, anything you do to your car (even basic disassembly) can be used as an argument against your claim.

-If you wanted to give them a chance, then I would make sure that you and the shop are aligned, in writing, on what an acceptable resolution would be. Who you're referring to (assuming the same one out there you told me about - keeping it private, of course) is established and should be insured. If they tear into it and determine the damage is catastrophic, they need to be ready to replace your engine.

Assuming the shop is capable of doing it expertly, I would push hard for a full rebuild. We're talking about nearly 2x the fill capacity here. All of that excess pressure...even if the head gasket is fine, the two-piece oil pan that is an engine out job, RMS and who knows what internals took that hit (5x higher iron in a sample with a few hundred miles on it is bad).

 

If I was in this position I would tell them to buy my car out from me and start fresh with a low mileage 507. This will be a year easily before getting her built up and running and you will always think something is wrong with it even after a rebuild.

I pop in here once and a while and sorry to read this. This sucks anyway you look at it.

 

Another good reason to learn and do as much DIY as you possibly can.

 

Thanks guys for the responses. I'm gutted but I have too many other things going on to let this get me depressed. Unfortunately, the one thing I was hoping to hear - "You're overthinking this, just put it back together and send it." - wasn't said.

One correction. I did start the car now that I think about it. After pulling out the old oil and putting in the new Motul, I started it up, got it up to operating temp, and moved it around to get it back into its parking spot. Sounded fine, no smoke no anything, cleared the codes and they stayed away for the few minutes I had it running.

Couple of things. I probably would've just put the new sensors, valves, O2s etc on it and driven it if it weren't for the Blackstone report that came through yesterday. I was hopeful that would have given me the green light to go ahead with a good report, but clearly that's not happening now. The car had a few canyon runs since the last oil change, one half of a track day with the 200mi there and back, and then whatever the shop put on it with or without all that extra oil (maybe 100-200mi over the course of 2 years?). Nobody knows when it was overfilled, who did it, or how many "test drives" were done with it.

Blackstone finding signs of coolant is a little strange because I'm running 90% distilled water with a couple of bottles of Diesel WaterWetter and a splash of coolant in there (can't be more than 5%). So where it's coming from is a mystery.

Again, these guys are good people, even friends. They had the car to perform suspension, transmission and body-work. Since they had the car so long I said you might as well perform an oil change and provided all of the oil and OEM filter for that, which were not used. So there was no engine work performed, just the failed change that resulted in almost double the oil in the sump that was not checked before releasing back to me.

No smoking, no strange sounds. Only the misfire and a lethargy in acceleration that is now obvious what happened. Could that much oil cause persistent misfires? The day I picked up the car and it was misfiring, it was bad - stumbling and bucking kind of thing. We pulled the plugs and they were not fouled, looked like normal plugs but with much higher gap wear than expected for their age. Put new NGKs in and it ran ok enough to get home. Misfires from firing in oil or possibly unrelated?

Is there any way that I've escaped serious damage here? Where would I look first and how would I test for it?



Great points thank you for that bud. I'm with you here. I almost just want to put it back together and drive it, see if the misfires clear. But all of that oil pushing on all of the seals and gaskets, especially the upper/lower pan, has me where I am now... kind of in a holding pattern until I get good advice from you guys. The iron is also what really gave me pause in that report because as you can see it's never been an issue until this. So it's coming from...where exactly? THAT'S what worries me. I also didn't think of the fact that they have insurance, which makes me feel better about going back at them a little more aggressively about fixing it.



Ugh! Start over? Just give up is more like it. How do you even value my car anyway? I think a top to bottom teardown and rebuild I would feel ok with, but that's a ton of work. And you're right it would be another year until it got sorted and just another year that goes by that I get less interested in it.



Yeah well the engine wasn't touched and I didn't think an oil change was a lot to ask to get right. All of their other work was spot-on perfect. These guys are friends who wanted to take on a cool outside-the-box custom project, and I just can't believe I'm in this spot. It sucks for everyone involved.

 

I'm a Blackstone fan and long time customer, but I don't really understand metal wear because of this situation. Over the years, my customers with radically overfilled oil usually just had problems with leaking oil seals, (crank seal, etc.), although I don't recall sending the oil out for analysis in one of those situations. I think something is off. I also think the motor might be ok, but since you have a great relation with this shop it might be best to make clear your concerns, (I'm sure you have), and come up with a plan together. If it's running well now, I might be inclined to put a few miles on it and then send that oil sample out. I also would make Blackstone aware of the situation and ask for their thoughts. They have been very helpful answering my questions over the years. Sorry to hear about this, and either way, it sucks.

 

That's incredibly ****ty. It's stuff like this why I never trust my car with anyone else... even something as dumb as an oil change people somehow can mess up. This is a crazy mess up at that. Filling the oil without draining?
-not sure what the legal avenues are I'd probably persue that first to get advice on damages and liability before proceeding
​​​​​​-from there I'd drain the oil and new filter (you have)
check the plugs again. Do a compression test. Then take it for a drive check for leaks and odd vibrations or error codes. If everything seems good drain the oil and send off for another blackstone to see what it's showing now. If it's high in iron I might check the crank bearings. I doubt the cylinders have any damage, and I doubt you did much to the bottom end either as weird as it sounds... these are pretty solid parts of the car..and hoping you are good after doing some basic maintenance and checks

 

Also depending on how your going forward the first thing I would do is get the manifold off and drain the oil out of it.

That is most probably the reason for the missfires but i dont know if you should touch it before figuring out what to do with the shop.

 

though the presence of iron is not ideal, i would say it is not enough to rule out that this engine is dead. the M156 is a very tough engine. i would say run through a few tanks of fuel continue to keep an eye on things, do another blackstone test. hell, even stick a boroscope into the crankcase if you are able to.

 

Hey Jim,

I am very, very sorry to hear about what happened.

In addition to any other damage that may have been caused as a result of the excess oil, overfilling the sump by that amount would have resulted in the crankshaft being mostly if not fully submerged. Running the engine with that much oil would definitely cause cavitation and aeration of the oil, resulting in inability of the of fluid film to properly lubricate the crankshaft journal bearings. I reached out to both my race engine builder and my friend who is now one of the top Daimler techs in NA, and both of them expressed that that would be their primary concern. Compression / leakdown is easy to measure and most other bits can be fairly easily accessed, checked and/or replaced if needed, but you can't see how much the crank bearings may have suffered without taking apart the bottom end. Damage to the bearings would also explain the iron you're seeing in the UOA.

Apart from the above, from a technical standpoint I don't think I have anything else to add that you haven't already thought of. While you may not need a new motor per se, it would be prudent for an experienced engine builder to take it apart and rebuild it with new bearings and rings before it deteriorates to the point when it is no longer salvageable.

I'm happy to have a chat whenever you'd like. Let me know if you don't have my contact into and I'll PM you or email you.

Again, I'm sorry to hear this man. This is really ****ty no matter how it happened.

Cheers,
Doug

 

If only ya'll knew the **** that happens at a dealership regularly. I've seen cars leave with no oil and come back after being driven 20 miles and sitting in the car wash line for an hour or so not have engine problems. lol. It's honestly pretty mind blowing how tough some of these things are and how weak others are. Typically the over filled cars leak or making odd noises, feel sluggish/luggy on acceleration, less responsiveness. The 4 cylinders in particular make whistling noises as it screws up the crank case pressure breathing and causes them to suck air in from the front or rear main seals. I cant say I've witnessed this on an M156 but I think you'll be totally fine. Im sure the intake is full of oil though as mentioned above.

And to all the DIY comments. I know this doesn't apply to most of you, however I see a lot of DIY that is 10000x worse than a lube tech over filling your oil.

 

It's a kick in the ***** for sure, but nothing that can't be resolved or is more than a speed bump in the bigger picture of things.

If you were able to start it and bring it to temp without issue, that's a very positive sign. I wouldn't hesitate to hit it with the full suite then: compression, leak-down, coolant pressure and combustion vapor tests.

The unknown mileage / duration here is the scary part. I read that Blackstone report as ~1K miles with 15L of oil, which of course is much riskier than 100-200 miles of test drives / moving the car around.

If it is coolant, it would be a trace amount in the sample. Even with your 90/10 combo of distilled water and the coolant additive, there is likely more in the mix from the prior fill that wasn't flushed out.

I might also be fixating on it from my experience last year with the ARP studs. For reference, potassium jumped to 28 PPM in the UOA I had right when the issues became detectable.

As for the misfires due to excess oil, wouldn't surprise me. The M156 has a much smaller and simpler PCV system than what I'm used to on other platforms to begin with, and is notorious for oil pooling in the IM.

The excess oil overwhelmed your PCV and catch can and I'd be more surprised if your IM wasn't soaked with oil.

Of course, happy to help any way I can. Did not forget how much of a help your perspective was for me last year.

I've been thinking more about the elevated iron in your UOA and I'm starting to suspect it's from the lifters. For reference, my first UOA after the lifters were upgraded showed 66 PPM of iron, which Blackstone noted as from them breaking-in.

I know bearings are called out in this thread and could very well be the root cause or part of it, but considering how the lifters operate and how any air in the picture risk elevated wear, it could also be the source.

It's a baffling situation. If they're good guys who made a mistake, what matters from this point forward is accountability and what they do to make it right.

 

In this situation you should not be touching anything on the car, if this has to go the legal route the more you touch anything after the work they have done, the less likely you are to get anywhere legally. It sounds like you have already done this unfortunately.

Yes while the shop may usually be good and worked on your car previously this is a huge mistake and I would not be letting them work back on the car. I hope everything you have said to them and them back to you is in emails? If not again you have not helped yourself legally.

Also you may want to remove from this thread the work they have previously done on your car if you don’t want people to know the shop that worked on your car to cause this issue.

If you want some advice, remove some of the things you have said in this post to protect yourself or better yet after you have seen some of the replies in this thread request to delete the whole thing, then go and see an lawyer to tell them everything and that you didn’t touch the car afterwards 😉, then unfortunately you would be best to have another shop do an inspection on the car to report there findings and cost to fix the car, back to lawyers who should write written notice to shop who caused the problems and that you are seeking the costs for the full amount in inspection/repairs.

 

I agree -- an oil change isn't a maintenance procedure any car owner should stress over. Yet when you examine the labor pool and the minimum wage flunkies that work for a couple weeks at a time wherever they can get hired and fired to do menial jobs, it's not at all surprising. Add to that the weed, edibles and fentanyl flowing over the border and you conclude that you should have no realistic expectation of dependable service from anyone performing these simple services. The labor turnover rate in all these entry level jobs is enormous, and nobody stays long enough to develop proficiency. Just getting the right part at an auto store is difficult unless you walk to pickup an online order.

 

I have a bit of insight into what goes on at dealerships...and from that alone I don't even take new cars there for free services.

We'll all find (or have experienced) horror stories from dealerships, reputable independents and DIY (completely agree with you that working on cars is not for everyone).

Way I see it, though, I can directly control the situation in only one of those paths, which is why I personally maintain my cars to the fullest extent possible.

That said, the example in this thread is not at all a "case for DIY" like some are chirping about. We're talking about a reputable shop earning trust through a track record of acing some custom / complex work, and then botching an oil change while in there for other things.

Pretty unusual situation...

 

If you want to see what happens to an engine when the oil is overfilled, this video is enlightening:

 

Find a few lawyers who are competent and see where you stand in big court. If you file in small court before big court, you can't go to big court.

Also, if the business owner gives no good faith to resolve the situation, consider contacting your county prosecutor as well as other customers who've had the same experience in the event you have multiple parties.

If it appears you have no recourse in big court, go to small court and file for the maximum at the latest point (sometimes 2 years depends on the state this occurred in, which is where you would need to file, not necessarily the state you live in.) this is so the other person is completely less prepared and has less of a fresh memory about the situation because you clearly will never forget this.

Go to an MB dealer for a "Diagnosis" in the event damage is discovered, I had a harsh time trying to explain my independent inspection from a non-dealer shop and fortunately had the same thing from an MB dealer I trusted.

It truly depends on the legal liabilities in the paperwork with the person/company you worked with as well which may be relevant which is why I would consult with a professional attorney before you do anything in that realm.

I went before a judge who was a moron and didn't know the laws in his own state and was so geriatric his court clerk was basically deliberating the legal situation and fortunately I was prepared and she was able to verify what I said.

this is a slow, painful, and research oriented process which does make it that much harder but thats the only way you will get any reimbursement from commercial negligence.

Good luck, odds are you have a strong case for small claims at the very least in my non-professional opinion.

 

Thats mind boggling. The 15L of oil would have flushed the nooks and crannies of this engine and would accumulate every piece of grime carbon and coolant inside the engine, essentially give the inner workings a bath. Hopefully thats the worst of it especially if the car still runs well. Probably a couple more flushes before all the effects of this overfill will surface.

 

I strongly advise against pursuing the lawyer route. You'll spend thousands of dollars and countless hours after which the court will order you into arbitration to negotiate an out of court settlement. Even with irrefutable evidence of malfeasance, you'll still end up compromising and end up breaking even if you're lucky. If this repair shop is one you've had a long term and satisfactory relationship, sit down with the owner and negotiate. The shop must have insurance coverage for situations such as this. The biggest challenge will be identifying the extent of the damage and determining the best remedy.

 

I have to say I think the takes on this from 63motorsports and streborx make some strong points. Imho.

 

The last type of topic I hope to see when returning here. I don't have much advice to give but hope this gets resolved properly and we don't lose one of the better examples of these fantastic cars.

 

Thanks for the responses guys, really appreciate all of your thoughts on this situation.

First thing to clear up is that I’m not going to lawyer up. These are good people who just made a mistake, and they’ve given me every indication that they’re going to help me sort this out and stick by their word.

Yes, the high iron and potassium are concerning for sure. But nobody really knows what was put in there. Or what all of that oil stirred up from the corners of the engine. My provided oil and filter were not used so it’s a mystery. I think the advice above to get a couple more clean and known samples out of it and tracking the numbers from there was good.

I don’t believe that taking my manifold off and replacing a bunch of parts is going to hurt my well-documented case one way or another. Like I said, I sincerely don’t believe that we’re going to have to go that route.

I think what I’m going to do next is to replace PCV, plugs, clean the intake. Then put it all back together and hope for the best. I’ll do that leak down and compression tests, as well as the coolant vapor test which was a good shout out thanks.

Then we are going to see if the misfire resolves and monitor the wear metals. If those two things clear up, I’m going to call it a dodged bullet. If one or the other does not, we’ll tear it down and rebuild. I am 100% sure that this shop will do the right thing if we get to that point (although I should probably get in writing that there will be no cost to me for the rebuild unless we take that opportunity to upgrade pistons, rods, cams, etc).

Again, can’t tell you how much I appreciate your thoughtful responses and kind words. At the end of the day it’s just a speed bump here, not life or death, everything’s going to be fine. A few of you have PMs incoming, thanks.

 

It may be fine but may also take a while for issues to surface. How far is the crank from the bottom of the lowest pan? You can probably validate if the crank was actually submerged while it was running.

I'd also install an oil pressure gauge if you don't already have one.

 

With 15 liters of oil in the pan, the crank was definitely submerged and had beaten the oil into froth causing bearing wear.

 

That make sense, but I would have thought that situation would trigger a low oil pressure code / warning. The oil pick up might have still had real / non-frothy oil to pump I would think, (maybe). A guess.