Hi guys,

Im new to all this DIY business, but im sick of paying dealer prices for an A service. What im really after is how to change the oil on a '00 S320. Also how do you reset the service reminder?

Thanks,

 

I have done the first oil change on my 99 E320 by myself about 5 months ago and from now on I will be doing it for that car and the 99 C230 and also a Pontiac Aztek 01, as long as the weather is good..

It was quite easy. Mind you I did not do it to save money, but to be able to use the best oil in the market that exceeds the latest MB specifictations ( MB229.5, 229.3, 229.1 and BMW LL-01/98 among others) and also to be able to know that all was done correctly and tightened up well. In addition I get to do it on my own time and end up not waisting time at a dealer or specialized shop waiting for other cars that are in front of me always.

If you drive a lot over 1 year (i.e. >10000 miles) it is recommended that you replace the paper filter at least once each 6 months and top off the oil.
MB recommends a new filter element (fleece?) for longer change intervals.

Unfortunately the best Supersyn oil in the US stores and dealers is not as good as the ones used in europe for the tight engine engineering specs to allow those cars to perform the way they do and to fly on the long inter country autobahns for so many thousands of miles between oil changes.

The only match I found in the US market is made by a company called AMSOIL. They started the marketing of synthetic oil for cars when all multi-nationals laughed at them back in the 70s. A US veteran fighter pilot figured that if it was good for his jets why wouldn't it be great for cars. So with that dream and vision he started the company after returning from the war. This company (AMSOIL) is today eons ahead of the big guys in oil performance. Their oil formulations have been measured against all others and produced wear indexes half of the best super-syn oil in the market and as much as one quarter of the wear index of your average oil. In addition it evaporates half the rate the best oils in the market do after 6 months of use. That is the difference between having real protection in your engine crank-case or oil syrup (I have seen that first hand when replacing the top 1 oil at the shops that was used in the E320 for 8 months or 3000 miles prior to the last change I did. It was in quite a thick state even after warming up the engine). No wonder the regular dealers and oil changing companies recommend you to change oil every 3000 miles or 3 months for the regular cars. The problem with MB in the US is that the FSS system was set for a target of 10000 miles between service calls. Most people went by that and unfortunately since the majority of the oil used here is not as good as in Europe they ended up with broken engines very fast and then went and sued MB and won their case because they were not warned about the types of oil to use. So now MB is only recommending oil products that meet their latest and tighter specifications.

So with all that as a historical background, when I bought my 2 used 99 MB, I tried to find out more about this top of the line synthetic oil made by Amsoil after hearing about it from 2 friends that fly airplanes so many times at the office. Since I made a reasonable size investment on those cars I figured I better take better care of them than I would do for a regular car.

The web site where you can read more about this and link directly to the manufacturer's web site is:

http://synthetic-oil-tech.com/1265580

just click on the ONLINE STORE button and search for EUROPEAN .
You should get a list with 4 products with the european formulation. They are all the same but packaged in different sizes. Most MB (E and above) engine oil capacity is around 8.5 quarts of oil . The C class uses a bit less (6.5?). The retail price is a bit more than the "top" line of off the shelf synthethic oils, but then again the old saying that you get what you pay for applies also here. For those that decide to do the oil change for all of their cars and want to save some money I recommend signing up as a wholesale customer for 6 months at a low cost of $10 on that same site and during that time just purchase all the oil you need at the same price they sell to the direct distributors.

I also recommend you order their engine oil flush product, to be used before putting their oil so as to flush out all slush from previous oil used. It is quite simple. All instructions are on the web site and on the product label. They also have excellent products to clean the injectors and other parts of the carburation system.

I did notice even what fews a few more horse power from the E320 and noticed that the engine runs a lot smoother and revs up much quicker when demanded by the driver. I did not measure the mileage before and after for the E320, but will be doing that with the Aztek as it has a trip computer that displays the average mileage between resets.


When you use the AMSOIL oil for the first time you should use the oil flush product. In that case it is also recommended to do the oil draining using the plug in the bottom of the engine, but all future ones can be done by syphoning the oil using a vaccum syphon that goes into the dipstick tube. You can buy at boat stores and it is called Topsider. There are many other ones in the market, but this is one of the best. It costs 39 retail, but can be had for 29 sometimes on sale. It is cheap enough. So just get one and enjoy that care of your second or only lady depending on your situation. It is also a lot cleaner than getting under the car. Many dealers do it that way nowadays. You can try parking the car over a ramp so as to cause the oil to shift towards the dipstick side so as to drain the most oil you can. You can do a test, but many users of MB and BMW have found that if they take out the plug there is less than a cup of old oil left.
One detail about using the topsider or similar systems is that the oil needs to warm but not very hot as it tends to make the hoses too soft and they might clapse temporarily causing a slower drain rate.

For those that live in Texas for example who have to drive hundreds of miles daily for business or even to go shopping, it is easy to put 15 or even more than 20000 miles a year. In that case check-out the AMSOIL product that is guaranteed to work for 35,000 miles or 1 year on the product label (go find someone else that does that). It is called xxxxx and it costs only a bit more than the european formulation oil. Of course you would have to replace the oil filter at the intervals that the FSS recomends the oil service and would be better to use the new filter types using a fleece element instead of paper. You can still go ahead and plan to replace that oil at the 10000 mile intervals, but feel comfortable going over it if for some reason you are away from a service station or still thousands of miles away from a point/time you can afford to check her in for service or do it yourself again.
Common sense should be exercised by those that still have cars under warranty, as far as keeping the records up to date and doing the plan A or B when the indicator on the dash indicates it is time for service. notice that up to the 2004 model year, the routine service was included in the car price, but in 2005 it may have been discontinued for some. Once the warranty is over I normally get more aggressive with the way I maintain my cars. Meaning that I try to do the oil changes and other things myself , such as:
replace air filter by upgrading to K&L or AMSOIL filters that seem to do better in the long run, specially when replacing a regular paper filter,
replace wipers, bulbs,cabin air filter, . (it is quite involving to get them out of the glove compartment area) and I am almost sure that in one of my cars those filters were not replaced even though it had gone through a Plan A less than 12 months before I got to replace it myself.). By now you should be getting the flavor as to why I am trying to maintaim the routine things in my cars as much as I can. I think we the MB owners are fortunate to have a car that is well engineered . Things are usually pretty easy to replace , check or adjust, even though on the more complex ones we are still better off getting the specialized mechanics take care of (or at least try, as looking through these forums you can find answers for problems that the dealers have been kicking around the bush on your car and never fixed) . If they only read the service notes as well as most of us in these forums do there would be a lot less complaints about their quality.

ok that's it in a nut shell.
Can you do the oil changes yourself? Yes most people with a bit of dexterity with house projects can handle that easily. You may want to observe your mechanic doing an oil change so that you can learn quickly and avoid making mistakes. You can allways jot down your question in these forums and someone always seem to have gone through the challenge you are going through and have the answers on what to check or do.

enjoy your next oil change. Choose your oil wisely to make the experience even more worthwhile.
Take a loomk at the items done during the service A and B and see if you can handle them too, as they are not difficult . You don't want to reset the FSS counter without doing the items associated with each service schedule. Service B specially is a bit more extensive than service A.
Following I will post the reset procedure.

 

It is in your car manual.

Here is what worked on my 99 vintage cars:
Move start switch into position "2"
Within 4 seconds press the reset button for trip counter twice within one second.

The display for the service request is thus activated for 10 seconds

Within these 10 seconds move start switch into position "O". The service request continues to be displayed

Press reset button for trip counter and hold pressed

Move start switch into position "2"

Continue to hold reset button for trip counter (about 10 seconds) until the signal sounds and the new start distance appears in the display.

I hope this helps, it does work in most pre 2000 MB models. I am not sure if it is the same way for 2000 and later.
Keep in mind that the FSS alert is not only for oil changes. See the listing of items that are checked or replaced at each of the Services A & B. They are easy tasks to be done by those of us that take car light maintenance matters to our hands

 

I am tired of reading about how good Amsoil is from this guy. Don't we have an administrator of this web site to discipline people who are trying to sell this junk under the guise of tech help? Let's keep this site pure.

 

I got some updates since my last postings here.
As I indicated before, I went ahead and did the oil change on my 2 cars (99 E320 , 99 C230 and 01 Pontiac Aztek) this past week.
2 of the cars had M1 and the 99 E320 had Amsoil 10W30 (25,000 miles rated). They all had about 6 months of oil use. I collected a sample for lab analysis on all 3 cars. I am mailing that in on 3/22. Results shall be coming online shortly.
While replacing the oil I installed all AMSOIL blends (european 5W40 for the MB cars and 5W30 for the Aztek) on each car. So 1 year from now I will do 2 lab analysis on the MB cars to see how that compares. Note that I will wait 6 more months on the AMSOIL oil when comparing to the M1 which was used for 6 months only. Why? It would be an overkill to drain the LONG life AMSOIL at 6 months mark.

Another interesting thing I would like to bring to your attention is that in all cases I drained the oil through the drain plug, after the engine had warmed up and allowed 5 sec of oil to drain first before taking a 3 oz sample.
An interesting thing that I noticed is that on the 99 E320, if you drive up on ramps, like those used for home car maintenance, the drain plug is not located on the lowest part of the oil tank. I pulled out my Topsider (oil sucking machine) , stuck its hose through the oil dipstick pipe and was able to remove an extra 8 oz of oil (a full large cup's worth). I was really surprised with that. The same did not happen for the 99 C230 because the drain plug is located on the lowest corner of the oil tank when you drive up a ramp. Maybe if you drive up only the left front wheel of the E2320 then you should be able to get most of the oil to drain naturally.
If anybody does oil change at home, you may want to look at those oil extractor machines. They do a great job and cause a lot less mess (I had to pressure wash a part of my driveway (after using absorbing material to remove the oil excess), as some oil spilled over the little drain collection tank I had)

I have seen a good fluid extractor for sale (58-20=38) on Boat US store flyer I received this week (It is valid from 03/24 to 04/03). their web site is westmarine.com or call 1-800-BOATING. Those oil extractors work just as well on car fluids extraction, except fuel of course for safety reasons. Proper care shall be exercised to avoid getting dirty on to the draining hoses and also to avoid mixing fluids if using it to drain something else besides engine oil. Use kitchen plastic bags to keep the used hoses clean and also to avoid having a mess with the oil that will invariably drip from the hoses after use.
Next week I should be able to report the oil analysis results and even offer the site links for your viewing pleasure.

 

hmmm, i dont see this guy trying to sell amsoil. Amsoil is a superior product and I am a dealer. I f you dont want to buy it then dont, bit I dont see any signs of him trying to sell it. RELAX

 

Got mine at Harborfreight $19.99 delivered...(do search on oil changer), then do a web search for "Harborfreight discount coupon". 24.99 - 5.00 and free shipping!

I don't like paying too much...hard to survive in a MB!

 

be careful with harborfreight, as most tools I bought from them turned out to be too cheap to last.

I have now also the lab test results to report on my 3 cars done recently.

here is a summary. For those who would be interested on the full summary please send a private message.

Car======oil used======Iron=Boron==Molybdenum=Visc100=NITR=TBN
99 E320==AMSOIL 5W30===5===86=====10=======10.20==1.0==11.8
99 C230==MOBIL1 0W40===11==135=====80======10.27==17.0==8.7
01 Aztek=MOBIL1 5W30===50===166====102======10.93==24.0==9.3

All the cars above had their oil changed about 6 months before the test was done. The lab indicated that the results were normal and that no corrective action was necessary at this time. All oils were indicated as good for continued use, but I was planning to change all to Amsoil for a future comparison, so I went ahead and changed the oil on all cars to start at exact the same tiime.

Note the major indicator of engine wear which is iron (WOW, double the wear with Mobil1 on MB engines?). Moly is also a good wear indicator, but Mobil1 chooses to use it as an "additive" so the comparison is not straight forward (I believe that the starting value for Moly is 60 on Mobil1 so that would equate to an adjusted value of 20 and 42 for the above last 2 cases).

I have no doubts on what to continue using from now on, based on scientific evidence.

Note the TBN value for Amsoil way higher than the Mobil1 oil. Note that it is ok down to 2.0 in general, but a higher starting and standing number after 6 months has a lot to say as to what oil will protect my engine parts against rust better.

all the cars above have had their oil changed to Amsoil european formula (5W40) (MB) or Amsoil 5W30 (Aztek) at this time. I will do the same test 1 year from now (no sense in wasting money changing the oil anytime sooner with Amsoil. I will definetely change the oil filter at 6 months intervals though)

A final note: (documented by photos of cruise computer displays)
My 01 Aztek average mileage (indicated on cruise computer) was 18.6 MPG on Mobil1 prior to oil change (total of 5600 miles or 6 months). It went up to 19.9 after replacing the oil with Amsoil 5W30. This is not added to brag about any oil quality as it is common sense to expect that a fresh oil with lower viscosity and more additives will be better for the mileage than an used oil. I have just done this test to debunk an online garage test site reported elsewhere on this thread, who posted that when they changed from Amsoil oil (with 14000 miles) to a fresh Mobil1 their test car mileage improved by 10%.
If with 5600 miles on the Mobil1 oil I got 7% better mileage when switching to a fresh Amsoil, then who knows how much better the savings would have been if I had waited another 8 months or 8,000 miles?

Voila, here is the truth. It might hurt some feelings. That was not the intention.

I am glad now that I will be able to go through the full manufacturer recommended mileage on the engine oil (10000 miles or 1 year) without worrying about doing any damage or causing any abnormal wear. In the process I will actually save a lot of time (and $$$) for the combined waiting time for all 3 cars oil change at the absurd 3 months or 3000 miles intervals many are still stuck with by virtual ignorance. In the process, I will be doing my part to reduce our dependency on middle east oil and reducing environmental polution.
I understand that Amsoil is made in the USA with US synthetic oil base materials.