Those of us who take the time to work on their cars benefit from grouping multiple maintenance items before engineered failure time.

While the intake plenum is removed to swap spark plugs we can easily access:
the rear crankcase breather items
empty the intake oil drain at the front,
clean PCV oil out of intake,
and other maintenance items I don't of know yet....

The dealer practice of doing work faster than what the book calls for is their shop game... but for DIY'ers we want to avoid duplicating our busy work.

Wouldn't it be mutually beneficial to create a lively thread with postings about LIST of maintenance items that in YOUR EXPERIENCE are best grouped when fixing these rides:

- Water pump, thermostat, coolant?

- Belt: Serpentine, tensioner, idlers, heat exchanger seals, filter base seals?

- Chain: Passenger side tensioner,...?

- Brakes: rotors, pads, flush, pins lube?
....
Everyone has different knowledge that can be shared🐰🐇

 

2014 M276 E350W4M 156,000KM

For the. upcoming service (Says Service A, but the intervals are all messed up since I do the oil changes at different intervals, potentially service B?)

I plan to do

1. Cabin Air FIlter
2. Engine Air Filter
3. Throttle Body Cleaning
4. Oil Change with Liqui Moly Molygen 5W-40 with OE Mercedes Filter (which is Purflux)
5. Alignment possibly

SO far, I've recently

1. Cleaned all the oil on the engine, from the time the timing covers leaking
2. Blead brakes
3. New rear rotors and pads

Don't remember the rest off the top of my head

 

my 12 550 with 104k miles on it. iv done all the basic stuff. tensioner, belt, all the pulleys, plugs, coils, trans service.



tip for plugs. have plenty of sized extensions or itll be a nightmare to reach them.
tip for coils. spray some pb blaster in the plug/coil area before removing the coil pack. i had a boot rip off on the left bank 2nd to last cylinder....i eventually got it off after drowning it in pb blast and using a socket just larger than the boot it self.

 

I am strong believer in inspections.
Most of MB parts last for 1 millions miles and I don't see reason for pre-emptive replacements.
That said in last years the idler pulleys seem to be weak point and low-priced item can create pretty expensive repair, so this is the only item I would replace base on statistics.

 

Do you have experience with the life span of these (180Amp ) VALEO alternators components:

Brush/Regulator combo.... 60kMi or 110kMi?? ("ECO Code B03" ALT. uses replacement Reg. #599125 ie. Benz# A0041541206)

Freewheeling pulley.... ???
AC rectifier bridge... lifetime?
Ball bearing set 180kM?

I am wondering what is the design life of the pulley vs. the brushes/regulator 😃

*Refrain from using the $10 aftermarket "TRANSPO" Brush/Reg that will groove your rotor ring...
Soft Valeo carbon brush match the soft coper rings

 

These alternators look beefy with extra cooling (I couldn't find a listing for MB)
How are you going to rewire for all these extra Amps....beef up prefuse or bypass?

 

If it all works out for the MB build let us all know. Thanks.

 

I think I remember reading about star vs. triangular stator wiring schemes years ago...

Star gives more current, less voltage
Triangular gives more voltage, less current

The regulator is in charge of managing rotor field to deliver a controlled voltage so it helps smooth out the lack of low rpm output in star configurations.

It'll be interesting to see how well it works with modern electronics.

 

how will this aftermarket alternator interface with the ECM and SAM's charge management ? are you just going to bypass all that ?

 

you realize the ECM has a control signal to the alternator to set what voltage its currently outputting so that it can manage the charging and load state?

 

wiring diagram I saw showed this "LIN C" signal coming OUT of the ECM and going INTO the regulator control circuit on the alternator. for voltage sense, I suspect it makes use of the hyundai battery monitor circuit.