I am new to this site and I must say that I find it very informative! I found it great to be able to get the voltage reading and the actual oil amount in the engine! I find the voltage very important becuase my MB tends to sits for at least 10 days and then it gets driven a bunch at once.

So now to my question. . . I posted a question on www.roadfly.com about the FSS interval. I got no reply or comment.

This is my 3rd MB and I have always changed the oil more often that the manual said. The prior two MBs had over 130,000 when I got rid of them, but they were perfect and had no problems. (Except my 1991 300E had a bad head gasket that MB piad for since it was a factory flaw).

Should I go 13,000 miles between oild changes like the computer states? I have now heard that I should get it changed at 5,000 miles but not reset the computer. Money is not the issue, but wasting good oil is.

How many miles have any of you put on a MB with the FSS (I think that it is 1998 models and newer)? Does anyone actually run the oil for that long and have cars with high miles?

When I lived in Europe I used organic oil (Castrol GTX) on my MB and ran it for 5,000 miles. The system took half of the oil this car takes and I drove the crap out of the car on the highway. The engine never had a problem in 200,000 km. This leads me to believe that if I have twice the oil (and its synthetic) then it should at least last twice as long (making it 10,000 miles) between oil changes.

My Audi (which we bought new in 1986) now has 260,000 miles on the original engine and we always used Castrol gtx and changed it every 3 to 4k miles. That car only takes 4 quarts of organic oil!

It could be that none of you keep cars this long, and if you lease them, who cares! But what do you all have to say? I think that Americas change their oil much more frequestly than Europeans and tend to waste the oil and money.

Thanks

Steve Aguirre

 

I know some people with MB's that follow the FSS system and they have about 100k miles on the cars. No problems with oil leaks, consumption, etc.

Our '99 ML has 68k miles on it and we've followed the FSS and all is good.

You can have your oil sample tested to see how it is doing and is it still doing it's job of lubrication. I think it's $20 to get it tested, but it gives you a good idea of how the oil has done and if it still has life left or not. I think it's called "blackstone labs" or something like that. Google it.

I think MB as well as other German automakers have proven with the FSS and FSS-like systems.