mellowyellow

Had my oil & filter changed at an Atlanta-area dealer this week. So far I have driven the BS home, so this oil only has about 10-15 miles on it.

I checked the oil this morning (twice actually) and was concerned that it was too dark. So I compared it to the oil in our Cayenne S (Mobil1 0W40) which was changed about 4 weeks ago.

The top of this paper towel shows the oil off the dipstick of the CLK BS (much darker), whereas the oil at my thumb and lower shows the oil from the dipstick of the Porsche.

Is 5W40 just a LOT darker to start with? I wouldn't think so. Me thinkey they didn't change the oil in my BS.



Thoughts?

GHAZAN

looks golden honey to me...yea the dipstick might have residual old oil dirty oil on it

PyroLume

Oil with thousands of miles on it would be tar black.

mellowyellow

I checked it three times, cleaning the dipstick each time. This is the result of the third pass on it.

Disagree. I just checked my BMW which also has Mobil1 synthetic and it was only slightly darker than the oil near the top of my picture. And that had 6000 miles on it.

GHAZAN

maybe the internals still have old oil residue and dirty oil...it looks fine

black-clk500

Any other reason you're suspicious?
It does look a little dark to me too, but I'm not an expert.
How many miles were on the last oil change?
Could be left over residue as others suggested?

forhamilton

I had the oil changed less than 6 months ago so it hadn't been very long.

MACHC5

Your coffee brown oil could be one of two things:

Maybe they drained the main oil pan bolt & forgot the smaller front pan bolt.

Or maybe they vacuumed the old oil out, and never got the small pan oil.

Check if the front drain bolt was ever touched & for that fact the rear also.

It takes time and diligence to do a CLK63BS oil change right...;-}

Jim

lewisracing

This is why I change my own oil whenever I can...

mellowyellow

Actually it's been a little over 8 months since you had the service done.

Good point - even if they did the drain method, they may have forgotten to do the front oil cooler drain. Actually I've heard it's SOP for them to suck the oil out instead of doing it by draining. I found a result where a local 63AMG owner found an additional 3.2 cups of oil still left to be drained after using a topside oil evacuator. That's a lot, almost a full quart of old crummy oil still there.

If you compare the two oils on my pic, there really is a big difference in color.

forhamilton

^^Wow. Time flies.

ATL_MB

I think they definitely changed the oil - just not all of it. My guess is that the oil cooler was not drained. I don't have a CLK, and it is my understanding that the oil fill is a little different in each 63 based on application, but guessing you have 9 qts. capacity or so, I would not be terribly worried about no more than a quart being left in the cooler. I would be sure they got it all next time, though (or you can do it yourself).

Another thought, though -- long shot. Did they use Mobile 1? I know where you had it changed, and they have used Quaker State in my (non-AMG) cars before. I doubt QS varies much in color from Mobil 1, but it might. (And Quaker State does make a 229.5 oil.)