Spuds

2012Blutec 82,000 miles Driving down the freeway 70 mph when engine when dead and all warning lights came on. Pulled to the shoulder and had towed in to dealer. Next day dealer said no codes were thrown, no charge, and by the way there’s a recall on the emissions components. I agreed to have the emissions work done and the service adviser would let me know when the parts came in.

My wife drove the two miles back to the house, we rode the Vespa over to pick it up, and when we got home home she said the R was making a loud engine sound. I took it around the block and knew it needed to go back to the dealer ASAP. Diagnosis this time is a seized engine.

Under direction of MB engineers to try and determine cause, dealer pulled engine and main crack bearing went out! New engine required, off the self new MB 350 Blutec: $27K!!!

Appealed to MB customer service to no avail. Their feeble offer was for $1000 toward the purchase of a new Mercedes.

I posted on a FB R Class page about my dilemma and a Canadian poster said that there was a rebuilder in Texas that does a lot of Sprinter diesels. Looked them up and they are only about five miles from me! They picked my R up from the dealer and towed it to their location. My rebuild is underway for about half the price of new.

Now after the rebuild I guess I’ll have the emissions recall work done and use the $3500 reimbursement toward the rebuild.

But Mercedes can still go F themselves! 😡

E55Greasemonkey

These diesel engines are junk. You should have just towed the car to the scrapyard or sold it as-is for $1500 and moved on with your life. You're dumping money into an old depreciating appliance. The fact that a "rebuilder" exists for this engine tells you all you need to know. There are no "rebuilders" for the m272 gasoline equivalent engine, because there is no demand, yet there are hundreds of thousands more m272's on the road. If you like the R-class you'd be better served with a gas model, if you can find one with decent miles. But they are old and outdated at this point. Otherwise buy a Honda, Lexus, Toyota, etc.

Sveina

Looks like you've had low oil pressure, or too low HTHS viscosity of the oil that is being used, or the lack of oil changes on that engine. Lots of regular oils in the US have too low HTHS. Maybe you have encountered fake motor oil. It's not uncommon.

I have done lots of miles in my OM642s. I would have got the dual row timing chain one tho. A much better engine than the M272/273. I'm not going to have another M273, but I will have another OM642 in the future for sure.