A week ago, about 20 miles from home in a small town, the junction from the expansion tank hose broke and before realizing it I got a low coolant warning. By the the time I could pull over the temp was going up fast and I stopped immediately to a lovely surprise under the hood. I was just about 2 miles from a place I could leave the vehicle overnight, so I managed to use whatever water was in the vehicle and a really nice guy at a passing house gave me a full bottle of Prestone (which I later paid back with a pizza - folks are really nice out here.) I was about to go to Wyoming too and I'm sure glad this didn't happen in the middle of nowhere there.

I'm real loathe to tow vehicles, so the moral of the story is this glue really worked great, in addition to some tape and a zip tie. It was enough to get me the 20 miles back home and I ordered a chayness replacement hose (the OEM was going to take two weeks and I'm wanting to go to Yellowstone this week.)

I did a flush with distilled water and waiting on the pink/violet stuff to arrive for the right mix. Moral of the story : the coolant system sucks(which you knew) , replace your hoses proactively and keep that glue in every vehicle.

 

May also want to consider replacing the “hard” plastic fittings, starting with the one that goes through the firewall on the right center of engine bay when looking from the front. This will blow out right about the same time as the hoses.
inquired at the dealer how many they had it stock; count was 212. Just had a feeling.

There was a member link some time back who referenced high-quality SS aftermarket hoses/fittings/pipes to replace the OEM versions on the cooling system - unsure if it is was a one off or the entire system. Will need to search it but my next step is to do just this.

If you want your engine to last a long time strong suggestion to replace all fittings, pipes, hoses and radiators; 1 for engine, 1 for twin turbos. Be advised this was an undertaking with some choice words. Nonetheless, overheating of these engines brings about an early boat anchor.

thanks for sharing!

 

Thanks for your thoughts here and on the oil cooler subject - I did replace the cooling hoses to the driver side turbo, thanks to the lovely aluminium to plastic (right in front of the engine block) the sadists at Benz engineerings decided on. It took about three weeks, I don't know how many weird pliers, and many of those choice words your referenced in a winter garage around 40 degrees. Good times. If I ever get around to installing a lift (been procrastinating for years even though I have space), and get that engine out I'll redo those again anyway.

I'll take your advice on that plastic fitting and swap out whatever I can access. Thanks again!

 

I second that observation of the big 90° plastielbow braking when you least expect it.

I bet your engine is packing extreme heat and with that extreme heatsials after stopping.

This is not caused by the cooling circuit but by the reduced oil pressure and low oil viscosity that prevent effective pistons cooling below 3500Rpm.

Have a look here for a popular solution...

 

Wow Tasos was really mad in that video, probably the most I've ever seen lol

Thanks for this post. That is an interesting issue that I wasn't aware of and it seems like there is no downside in unplugging that very stupid solenoid.

My engine pretty much runs at the 90 degree mark that seems to be where everyone else runs, so my money is on more stupid plastic choices by theses so-called engineers that fail inevitably vs. excess heat - but again the reward/risk on unplugging that deal seems skewed to the upside for sure.

The scoring issue is separate from my understanding (folks chimed in on my oil cooler addition post recently) - obviously the solenoid being stuck can cause that cascading starvation issue, but its not going to prevent scoring which I understand is just going to happen to all alluminum cylinders and really only steel sleeving appears to be the answer.