restore90300e

I have owned a 1990 300e since approx 35000 miles. the oil consumption thing started @ about 50,000 miles and I have just added oil since then ( car has 165,000 now). At around 150,000 miles plugs began to foul badly while sitting in traffic. I assume this is the valve seal problem I read so much about. The car is in excellent shape and I have no problem with a valve job, but now the bad stuff. At 160,000 miles blue smoke started pouring out of the exhaust at startup and on excelleration. I'm no mechanic but experience tells me this is a piston ring problem. This is my first post and would appreciate some advice or direction (the junk yard). The car is still actually quite beautiful and actually runs well when the plugs aren't fouled and I have no problem with repairs if they are reasonable. Just some advice or comments, please. thanks.

shdoug

Bad piston rings would be extremely unlikely, assuming that decent maintenance was done in the past. These engines just don't usually wear like that. You can check for crankcase blow-by. If the rings are shot you will have excessive blow-by but if it's the valve guide seals then it will just blow smoke out the tail pipe.