Cyan

The Flexible Flex System (FSS) affects more than half million Benz owners. When it developed problems for many Mercedes engines, some owners took MBUSA to court. In the closing arguments, the company solved its own case.

If you own a MB assembled between January 1998 and April 2001 you must read the article in Benzo magazine (April 2003 issue).

These vehicles with FSS are covered for 10 years or 150,000 miles for any oil-related engine problems. The article explains how dealerships were not being compensated by MBUSA for the synthetic oil and some dealerships used conventional API SH or SI oil instead of the manual-recommended synthetic oil. The cars running on conventional oil that went without service for 10,000-20,000-mile intervals developed sludge and some severe engine problems.

MBUSA looking to pay $118 million to owners. Good article.

Nektopoli

Do you mean;

If you own a MB made between January 1998 and April 2001 you must read the article in Benzo magazine (April 2003 issue).

NP

Cyan

marineboy0

What was the change that was put in place after this date and what explicitely was the sludge issue caused by?

Your help is appreciated.

Cyan

The FSS was implemented in Jan 1998. The use of conventional oil-related issues affected cars up to April 2001 according to the article.

The article is your best shot for technical information but to me; if you're driving a car for 10K to 20K miles in severe conditions without an oil change, you're looking fro trouble.

marineboy0

Cyan
How can I get a copy of the article is there a URL?

Cyan

Man, I ran into the article by accident.

The magazine is called Benzo. Look in Google and Yahoo for any threads on that magazine.

Nektopoli

After that date MB only recommends synthetic oil in it's cars.

NP

Nektopoli

If you own an affected veh. you should get a letter from MB letting you know your warranty is extened. My brother got one for his 98 W202.

NP

Darkmann

C'Mon Cyan, that's a blanket statement that so erronous that I had to respond. The FSS works just fine WITH SYNTHETIC LUBRICANTS. MB made a big mistake in recommending them on non synthetic pre MY00 vehicles. People had oil related problems, and frankly, the exact cause may differ between dealers. I have tested these oils after 13K miles on my E class amd ML class and the oils (Mobil 0W40) after that much mileage still have some protective capability. The FSS works and I don't see why so many people are skeptical. And BTW, by the time the engine gets damaged you'll be ready for another vehicle anyway!!!

Cyan

I did not write the article, merely brought it to our group for discussion.

Personally, I've placed 9000 miles on my car since its last service and the oil level has not dropped a single notch on the oil dip stick. This car will not "burn" a drop of oil. It has been serviced with synthetic oil (Mobil 1) since new.

Nektopoli

There always a thin layer of oil left on the cylinder walls during the combustion stage so all engines burn a small bit of oil.

NP

marineboy0

I did not think the FSS feature was really that surprising when I first bought the vehicle (ML320) in 1999. In Europe most manufacturers recommend an similar period 8-10000m between oil changes. Being an English transplant to US - I was always somewhat surprised that American owners are so fastidious about oil changes at 3-4000 miles. (The lower cost of oil here probably helps this - culture..)

In Europe the oil changes are extended - I have never seen any data on whether engine longevity is directly affected. You do see shorter duties of 6000m for turbo vehicles and m.cycles - but it is still significantly different to the US.

However even in Europe - if a manufacturer stated a requirement of only synthetic oil to meet that oil change duty - I would still smell a rat - some engineer somewhere screwed up.

Just my cynical opinion

pocholin

I'm leting the FSS tell me when to do the oil change, my car has almost 67k miles and it is at the shop right now for Service A, it went over 14k miles, I checked the oil this weekend and it looks black but it still seems to have some viscosity at my finger tips (not the best way to test viscosity, but so be it ).