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I am chasing down an oil leak in my 2006 CLS 500 (that is 5.0, not the 5.5 one) and figured I could you use some advice and perhaps help others in the same strange situation...
Short summary - recently purchased a great looking CLS with 100k miles on the clock. Shortly after that, I went on a wedding trip with my wife and we discovered it has quite a bit of taste for oil. This taste equaled to 4 liters of oil for a journey of about 4k miles. When I got it in a workshop the usual leaks for that engine showed up - rear crankshaft main seal, valve covers, and the breather. A workshop took care of those.
That was all well until I noticed again the smell of burnt oil coming from under the front doors after a drive. Oil level was also still decreasing. Went back to the workshop and this time my mechanic had another conclusion - head gasket. Now I know this is not common for those engines unless severely overheated, but performance wise the car runs and feels great. I've seen occasionally blue smoke when on a hill but that quickly goes away and under heavy acceleration, there is zero smoke of any color.
Now, oil is gathering on the top of the engine block (in the middle between the two sides of the "V") and this did lead my mechanic to the conclusion it's leaking from the head gasket.
Could that be the case or am I missing anything else that might bring oil there?
Also, a blown head gasket should indicate severe damage and yet all of the miles so far were flawless. Shouldn't it feel somehow if the engine has such level of wear?
Here are some pics.
Any ideas are warmly appreciated.
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