cdw904

Two years ago I bought a pristine 1995 E300 diesel. It had complete records up to its current mileage; 92K at the time. I've had to do a few maintenance things to the car.. You know.. Fix the typical Leaky injector pump, brakes, tires, sin visor clip, blown fuse in the fan relay, etc. Overall, VERY happy with this car and actually glad I found a W124 vs. a W210.

I really want this car to last so I have a question to ask. Exactly how "hard" do you drive your E300 Diesel?

On takeoff I usually have the pedal all the way to the floor (these cars aren't the snappiest). It will usually get up to 3500+ rpms before it shifts to 2nd. Then it is a lot of torque and RPM = about 3K before it shifts to 3rd. Then I back off the throttle when I get to about 50MPH. (sometimes I drive it a little harder than this though).

There are nice firm shifts and it feels like a stump puller. So can anyone tell me if I am being hard on this car or if you drive yours like this? Also, anybody know what kind of longevity I should get with the OM606?

Thanks,

Craig

RhinoLT

In the city I usually operate my D between 2000 2500 on take off...When Im entering freeway my rpm goes up to 4000. Im trying not to push my D to hard.

STLe320

It's your own personal style of driving. It's not a bad thing to drive it that hard, but it will be bad on the components in the long run. And not to mention your fuel economy.

Wolf190

A car is made to be able to run right up to its redline rpm. Stle320 is right, you can drive it as hard as you want. But basically the easier you drive it, the longer it will last without any problems. I always keep this in mind, but at the same time I like to have a little fun in my car

POS

I owned a '95 E300D for a few years and drove it 140 miles a day; my answer - drive it hard. The car struggled to "fly" by my definition, so as a consequence I had to learn to maximize the power I had. I planned maneuvers ahead, I kept side lanes open, I accelerated before I really needed to.

I come from the school that diesels like to be worked - the more you baby them the worse they age. A free-flowing diesel is one that's been driven throughout the RPM range regularly. I'm currently going through this with my 64,000 mile w123 300D. For the past twenty years, it hasn't been over 50 mph and it's drives like it - slow and boggy. I'm in the process of trying to clean out all that buildup of the low RPM range, and I expect it to "wake up" when I finish, but it'll take time to undue the 26 years of light throttle.