Hi committee,

I bought my GLE 350 in 2021 (and this is our first MB vehicle) and it has been around 3 years and 5 months. Two days ago, the engine light was on but the car drove fine. So I took the car to the dealership the other day morning for diagnostics. And the following is their report:

CUSTOMER STATES CHECK ENGINE LIGHT ON DASH - VERIFIED CONCERN - FOUND FAULT CODES P219E77(CYLINDER 3 MIXTUER FORMATION IS IRREGULAR) AND P1CE577 ADND P1CEF85 - PROCESSED FAULT CODES - PERFORMED LEAKAGE TEST - FOUND LEAKING THROUGH EXHAUST VALVES IN CYLINDER 3 - COMMON ISSUE FOR EXHAUST VALVE SEATS TO WEAR CAUSING IMPROPER SEAL - RECOMMEND CYLINDER HEAD - KNOWN ISUEE WITH 260 AND 264 MOTORS

and they quoted me for $13000+ for this fix. The vehicle has 64k miles, I did all service work at BM dealership (and planned to do so in the future) so I didn't think about purchasing additional warranty at all. This $13000+ repair cost is quite a lot and I'm frustrated about this. Even the technician at the dealership noted that this is a known issue. I took the car to another mechanic shop today for second opinion and he just asked about the P219E code and mileage on the car, he then inferred about this common issue with 264 engine. Never the less, he ran a pressure test and confirmed the issue - cylinder 1 is at 190 PSI, cylinder 2&4 are at 175 PSI but cylinder 3 is only 145 PSI, left-over fuel mark on cylinder 3 spark plug which is likely due to non-perfect combusted fuel (he told me that this was not terribly low and that was probably why the car still drives fine).

Since then, I spend a lot of time searching online and found many similar posts. I also see that MBUSA has extended engine warranty for some GLB/GLA/GLC models due to this issue but I am honestly not sure why GLE is not included (since they're using the same engine)? I've called MBUSA to create a ticket but I'm not sure how it will go ... I see some posters mentioned a "goodwill" repair but I'm wondering how that works? Should I talk to the dealership service manager and see if he'd be willing to file a case for me with MBUSA (which seems to increase the chance of the "goodwill" repair)?

Thanks everyone!

Request for good will if you serviced the vehicle at the same dealership for years, try regardless if you didn't service it there. Try different MB dealerships.

Duplicate thread, isn't it? Junk cylinder head on the 260/264 four-banger is a well-established feature delivered by MB to the customer. Unfortunately. The only out of warranty solutions are fix it (dealer, indy or DIY) or dump it.

Yeah, thank you very much for the suggestions, I will call different dealerships next Monday and see if they'd be able to help.

Best of luck