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Cylinder cylinder wall scuffing with pictures...oil additive might help?
I posted this a few days ago in another thread I thought maybe a separate thread might be better;
I have a Mercedes m157 engine (5.5liter bi-turbo) in my short commute, daily driven ride. I bought the car with 50k miles with fresh dealer oil. at 55k i changed the oil and put a cheapo boroscope into cyl 5 (known to be the first cylinder to show wear)
and as you can see there is some minor scuffing.(1st image at 50k, 2nd image at 55k) At 55k (1 year later) I did a 2nd oil change. again I did the boroscope and got the 2nd image with notably more piston scuff. I was running Liqui Molly 5w40 leichtlauf. I also ran a mild tune for 4k of the 5k miles. I've now pulled the tune and am sending a sample to blackstone. I'm not looking for magic but if an additive could slow down the rate of damage I'd like to try. I'm interested in the Liqui-moly Ceratec or MoS2. I'm in a colder climate (ny state) and have read that some suspect (mostly porsche owners that seem to be having a cylinder scoring problem) that when cold, the piston warms and expands faster than the aluminum cylinder and can cause this. I've also found more general piston/cylinder info suggesting this is a lubrication issue. I'd welcome any thoughts...Thanks for reading!
It's conceivable that more/better/different lubricant or additive can slow a situation like scuffing. The challenge is that no one has posted on this site, that I have seen, a definitive root cause analysis or report.
The two leading candidate proposed root causes in my mind are failed cylinder surface coating, or failed piston surface coating. Failure of either, or both, of these coatings can lead to exposed aluminum rubbing against a harder surface, and the inevitable (scuffing) is the result.
I am not convinced that more, better or different lubricant can prevent coating failure, if this is the root cause, from happening. To me it's all too believable that MB cheaped out on either the cylinder coating, the piston coating, or both. The coatings are expensive steps in the manufacturing process.
Another potential root cause is that the coating process for cylinder #5 had a problem in the manufacturing process. This type of thing happens every day in manufacturing. It could be the thermal environment of the coating machinery when cylinder #5 is being coated is suboptimal. Same line of thinking can be used for the engine operating environment. Cylinder 5 could see just the right (wrong) combination of coolant flow+temp, oil flow+temp and mechanical stresses that the coating fails over time.
Because cylinder #5 seems to be a common failure point, my thinking is the cylinder coating design or manufacturing process is the root cause of scuffing.
To the original post, a lubricant change may indeed help.
m157 e63s AMG cylinder scoring and complete engine failure
I have a 2014 e63 S AMG and i've owned the car since 2015. I bought it from the dealer with 1500 miles CPO in 2015. I've driven it as a daily commuter (shorter trips 13 miles/way) and had it serviced regularly at the dealer. I was driving home from work and the car completely lost power while driving and wouldn't accelerate. The dashboard lights all lit up and the car lost all ability to accelerate. I was able to pull to side of the road during Friday evening traffic, but the car wouldn't start. Auxiliary power still worked and I was able to put the car into neutral for a tow. When the power failure occurred, I did smell a faint smell of what smelled like an electrical fire/smoke, but it went away quickly. Upon inspection by the dealer, they can't get the engine to move, can't turn the crank shaft either direction and upon changing spark plugs, checking the oil and oil filter, they found small fragments of metal in the engine oil. They also found scoring in the fourth cylinder. They're telling me the engine is not fixable unless I want to take the entire engine apart, which would be very costly and may not yield results. A new engine would by 62K, which the car was recently valued by the dealer at 39,500. Essentially at this point, the car is not worth repairing, a 40K loss. This is super frustrating for a 100K car with a 62,000 engine that has been serviced regularly and after 38K miles, the car is useless.
I'm wondering if anyone has had this issue on an e63. The car has was never tuned and never driven hard. I didn't even race start it, which is kind of a shame.
I have a 2014 e63 S AMG and i've owned the car since 2015. I bought it from the dealer with 1500 miles CPO in 2015. I've driven it as a daily commuter (shorter trips 13 miles/way) and had it serviced regularly at the dealer. I was driving home from work and the car completely lost power while driving and wouldn't accelerate. The dashboard lights all lit up and the car lost all ability to accelerate. I was able to pull to side of the road during Friday evening traffic, but the car wouldn't start. Auxiliary power still worked and I was able to put the car into neutral for a tow. When the power failure occurred, I did smell a faint smell of what smelled like an electrical fire/smoke, but it went away quickly. Upon inspection by the dealer, they can't get the engine to move, can't turn the crank shaft either direction and upon changing spark plugs, checking the oil and oil filter, they found small fragments of metal in the engine oil. They also found scoring in the fourth cylinder. They're telling me the engine is not fixable unless I want to take the entire engine apart, which would be very costly and may not yield results. A new engine would by 62K, which the car was recently valued by the dealer at 39,500. Essentially at this point, the car is not worth repairing, a 40K loss. This is super frustrating for a 100K car with a 62,000 engine that has been serviced regularly and after 38K miles, the car is useless.
I'm wondering if anyone has had this issue on an e63. The car has was never tuned and never driven hard. I didn't even race start it, which is kind of a shame.
have you considered a used engine? I would take it to an independent reputable independent mechanic and get their opinion before making any big moves. The dealers motivation is always suspect.
this is not a common issue that I've read about, I'm sorry for your frustration. So you've owned it since fifteen hundred miles? So basically new? Certainly it could have been abused by the first owner but to then fail at 38,000 miles is odd.
others will chime in here shortly on how this could have happened mechanically. The m157 does not like short mild trips - it needs to get warmed up and driven hard at times to blow out carbon deposits.
this is a thread perhaps worth reading though it's entirely unclear if it affects you:
I have a 2014 e63 S AMG and i've owned the car since 2015. I bought it from the dealer with 1500 miles CPO in 2015. I've driven it as a daily commuter (shorter trips 13 miles/way) and had it serviced regularly at the dealer. I was driving home from work and the car completely lost power while driving and wouldn't accelerate. The dashboard lights all lit up and the car lost all ability to accelerate. I was able to pull to side of the road during Friday evening traffic, but the car wouldn't start. Auxiliary power still worked and I was able to put the car into neutral for a tow. When the power failure occurred, I did smell a faint smell of what smelled like an electrical fire/smoke, but it went away quickly. Upon inspection by the dealer, they can't get the engine to move, can't turn the crank shaft either direction and upon changing spark plugs, checking the oil and oil filter, they found small fragments of metal in the engine oil. They also found scoring in the fourth cylinder. They're telling me the engine is not fixable unless I want to take the entire engine apart, which would be very costly and may not yield results. A new engine would by 62K, which the car was recently valued by the dealer at 39,500. Essentially at this point, the car is not worth repairing, a 40K loss. This is super frustrating for a 100K car with a 62,000 engine that has been serviced regularly and after 38K miles, the car is useless.
I'm wondering if anyone has had this issue on an e63. The car has was never tuned and never driven hard. I didn't even race start it, which is kind of a shame.
Posts like these scare me, especially being tuned. But than I see guys running 10s,chasing 9s, and wonder maybe these cars really do love getting warmed up, getting hot, and getting abused!
A brief update on my situation: it's been a year and about 7500 miles since I posted the pics and started this thread. I've had 2 perfect blackstone reports (one from the time of my first post and one last month) and camera inspection shows no further cylinder wall scuffing. After the first good blackstone report I put my stage 1 tune back on. My car which now has 62k still amazingly burns no oil at all. I've been running liqui-moly ceratec since then. Not sure if it has been helpful but it's cheap insurance. I always make sure my oil is up to temp before loading up the engine. I don't drive it very hard but that's more a factor of living in congested northern NJ....not an open road to be found!!!
I have a 2014 e63 S AMG and i've owned the car since 2015. I bought it from the dealer with 1500 miles CPO in 2015. I've driven it as a daily commuter (shorter trips 13 miles/way) and had it serviced regularly at the dealer. I was driving home from work and the car completely lost power while driving and wouldn't accelerate. The dashboard lights all lit up and the car lost all ability to accelerate. I was able to pull to side of the road during Friday evening traffic, but the car wouldn't start. Auxiliary power still worked and I was able to put the car into neutral for a tow. When the power failure occurred, I did smell a faint smell of what smelled like an electrical fire/smoke, but it went away quickly. Upon inspection by the dealer, they can't get the engine to move, can't turn the crank shaft either direction and upon changing spark plugs, checking the oil and oil filter, they found small fragments of metal in the engine oil. They also found scoring in the fourth cylinder. They're telling me the engine is not fixable unless I want to take the entire engine apart, which would be very costly and may not yield results. A new engine would by 62K, which the car was recently valued by the dealer at 39,500. Essentially at this point, the car is not worth repairing, a 40K loss. This is super frustrating for a 100K car with a 62,000 engine that has been serviced regularly and after 38K miles, the car is useless.
I'm wondering if anyone has had this issue on an e63. The car has was never tuned and never driven hard. I didn't even race start it, which is kind of a shame.
Sorry to hear, it’s a tough situation and disappointing I’m sure.
This is the reason to avoid M157 and M278 engines if the vehicle is owned without original manufacturer’s or exclusionary (Fidelity) warranty coverage.
I have a 2014 e63 S AMG and i've owned the car since 2015. I bought it from the dealer with 1500 miles CPO in 2015. I've driven it as a daily commuter (shorter trips 13 miles/way) and had it serviced regularly at the dealer. I was driving home from work and the car completely lost power while driving and wouldn't accelerate. The dashboard lights all lit up and the car lost all ability to accelerate. I was able to pull to side of the road during Friday evening traffic, but the car wouldn't start. Auxiliary power still worked and I was able to put the car into neutral for a tow. When the power failure occurred, I did smell a faint smell of what smelled like an electrical fire/smoke, but it went away quickly. Upon inspection by the dealer, they can't get the engine to move, can't turn the crank shaft either direction and upon changing spark plugs, checking the oil and oil filter, they found small fragments of metal in the engine oil. They also found scoring in the fourth cylinder. They're telling me the engine is not fixable unless I want to take the entire engine apart, which would be very costly and may not yield results. A new engine would by 62K, which the car was recently valued by the dealer at 39,500. Essentially at this point, the car is not worth repairing, a 40K loss. This is super frustrating for a 100K car with a 62,000 engine that has been serviced regularly and after 38K miles, the car is useless.
I'm wondering if anyone has had this issue on an e63. The car has was never tuned and never driven hard. I didn't even race start it, which is kind of a shame.
Sorry to hear, I can understand the frustration. I agree with Peter, you need to take it to an independent performance shop that has experience with Mercedes vehicles and preferably direct M157 experience. They will be able to tell you what exactly went wrong and why, and then come up with a plan. You could have the engine sleeved and built with forged internals for much less than the dealer is quoting for a new engine...
Haha accessibility of cheap borescopes is a mixed blessing. Sometimes ignorance is bliss…
I’ve taken apart and rebuilt so many engines I’ve lost count. In the 100’s.
To me, those cylinders (in the first post) look like what you’d expect to see on the thrust side of any cylinder with 50,000 miles.
Thrust side always shows some wear on any engine with that kind of mileage. Especially with the cyl pressures seen in a turbocharged engine.
It’s really not that bad….
Now I’m no fan of aluminum cylinder walls and always prefer sleeves, but think there’s a lot of misdiagnosed issues surrounding these MB V8’s (and other MB engines)
Folks should pay attention to leak down tests more than anything else. Borescopes are handy, but you have to have some context. A failed ring or piston skirt will look much worse than that. I think detonation /pre ignition is a bigger danger than anything else. I believe it’s the cause of many failures here on these, and other manufacturers forums. It’s not limited to Mercedes.
I know it’s no consolation to mjhk97, but Autotrader is littered with M157’s and M278’s over 100k miles….
Originally Posted by mjhk97
This is super frustrating for a 100K car with a 62,000 engine that has been serviced regularly and after 38K miles, the car is useless.
I would verify by getting a second opinion for sure. Also see if you can get pictures of Cyl 4 and post it here. Unfortunately there’s a lot of incompetence in this (and any) industry these days. ☹️
Last edited by crconsulting; Dec 13, 2022 at 03:56 PM.
A brief update on my situation: it's been a year and about 7500 miles since I posted the pics and started this thread. I've had 2 perfect blackstone reports (one from the time of my first post and one last month) and camera inspection shows no further cylinder wall scuffing. After the first good blackstone report I put my stage 1 tune back on. My car which now has 62k still amazingly burns no oil at all. I've been running liqui-moly ceratec since then. Not sure if it has been helpful but it's cheap insurance. I always make sure my oil is up to temp before loading up the engine. I don't drive it very hard but that's more a factor of living in congested northern NJ....not an open road to be found!!!
Getting to operating temp before getting heavy on the throttle and boost will go a long way for engine longevity for sure.
Also, benz has a document with pictures showing acceptable cylinder wall scuffing and scoring, ill try to pull it up and post it here.
Also, benz has a document with pictures showing acceptable cylinder wall scuffing and scoring
See attached PDF
You can see that what is acceptable as cyl wall scuffing would make most forum members cringe. Unless you've inspected many cyl wall failures, its easy to get caught up looking for the perfect bore.
The reality is, if you look in the bore of most engines with 50k and more, you'll see some scuffing. Leakdown & Compression is really the preferred method to diagnose a failure. That goes for Aluminum cyl walls or Cast Iron.
The last two pictures of that document show what a true piston skirt/ cylinder wall failure really looks like....
As I said in my earlier post, borescopes are a mixed blessing. Many of the pictures I've seen posted on forums where people claim to have cylinder wall failure/scuffing look like the top two pictures on the last page of the MB .pdf
As far as mjhk97's failure. As I posted above, I would suggest a second opinion for sure. See if you can get pictures of Cyl 4 and post it here.
Last edited by crconsulting; Dec 15, 2022 at 01:50 PM.
crconsulting- Thanks for taking the time to post that pdf as well as to offer your well informed opinion! It's reassuring to know that the minor scuffing I have could be considered typical in an engine with my mileage, I guess I haven't earned my "enginedestroyer" forum name just yet...I tore down an old Saab 900 spg engine I was working on a few years back and with 200k on the odometer, the original honing marks were still in the cast iron cylinder, I was hoping to see something like that when I peaked into my e63. There is a lot of talk in the porsche forums on cylinder wall scoring that has become a big problem lately. It seems that cars from the northeast are disproportionately affected. First they were thinking machining tolerances when cold were the culprit but now I believe they are pointing the finger at winter fuel mixes offered at the pump in colder areas of NA.
A brief update on my situation: it's been a year and about 7500 miles since I posted the pics and started this thread. I've had 2 perfect blackstone reports (one from the time of my first post and one last month) and camera inspection shows no further cylinder wall scuffing. After the first good blackstone report I put my stage 1 tune back on. My car which now has 62k still amazingly burns no oil at all. I've been running liqui-moly ceratec since then. Not sure if it has been helpful but it's cheap insurance. I always make sure my oil is up to temp before loading up the engine. I don't drive it very hard but that's more a factor of living in congested northern NJ....not an open road to be found!!!
Originally Posted by crconsulting
See attached PDF
You can see that what is acceptable as cyl wall scuffing would make most forum members cringe. Unless you've inspected many cyl wall failures, its easy to get caught up looking for the perfect bore.
The reality is, if you look in the bore of most engines with 50k and more, you'll see some scuffing. Leakdown & Compression is really the preferred method to diagnose a failure. That goes for Aluminum cyl walls or Cast Iron.
The last two pictures of that document show what a true piston skirt/ cylinder wall failure really looks like....
As I said in my earlier post, borescopes are a mixed blessing. Many of the pictures I've seen posted on forums where people claim to have cylinder wall failure/scuffing look like the top two pictures on the last page of the MB .pdf
As far as mjhk97's failure. As I posted above, I would suggest a second opinion for sure. See if you can get pictures of Cyl 4 and post it here.
For sure agree!!
Here is the attached document for the silitec bores M157:
I tore down an old Saab 900 spg engine I was working on a few years back and with 200k on the odometer, the original honing marks were still in the cast iron cylinder
Definitely the exception rather than the rule. As I mentioned above, I'm not a fan of aluminum cylinders. I think they have their advantages, but as far as longevity goes, my opinion is iron sleeves are superior in that regard.
Just curious, were you the original owner of that SAAB? I ask because odometer readings are not always indicative of actual mileage on engine. i.e. maybe it was replaced
Originally Posted by a1bray
There is a lot of talk in the porsche forums on cylinder wall scoring that has become a big problem lately. It seems that cars from the northeast are disproportionately affected. First they were thinking machining tolerances when cold were the culprit but now I believe they are pointing the finger at winter fuel mixes offered at the pump in colder areas of NA.
Yeah, it's hard to say what's going on there. To be honest, I haven't followed it. But forums are littered with guys with borescopes worried about damage to cylinders. I'm not saying that there's not failures associated with ambient temperatures, warm up habits, rich mixtures, stuck injectors, gas "blends", piston skirt/cyl coating failures, and a whole myriad other issues. But the internet by nature, makes us all hyper-sensitive to failures when they happen. If a manufacturer produces a million engines and has a 1/2 percent failure rate, that's 5000 engines that are going to have issues... If a 100th of those people get on a forums and complain, all the sudden you've got 50 people making it seem as though the issue is widespread. It's how we end up with "fake news"
Of course, no one whose engine has failed is gonna be happy they won that lottery, and I would be pissed too...
But tolerance stacking of sorts, i.e. a whole series of events adding up to a failure (think USS Titanic) and manufacturer pushing the envelope on engine efficiency/power and production costs, is what's leading to many of these failures.
It sucks if it happens to you, and I can empathize with those people. I certainly don't want to downplay their frustration.
Last edited by crconsulting; Dec 16, 2022 at 01:37 PM.
But forums are littered with guys with borescopes worried about damage to cylinders. I'm not saying that there's not failures associated with ambient temperatures, warm up habits, rich mixtures, stuck injectors, gas "blends", piston skirt/cyl coating failures, and a whole myriad other issues. But the internet by nature, makes us all hyper-sensitive to failures when they happen.
I posted this a few days ago in another thread I thought maybe a separate thread might be better;
I have a Mercedes m157 engine (5.5liter bi-turbo) in my short commute, daily driven ride. I bought the car with 50k miles with fresh dealer oil. at 55k i changed the oil and put a cheapo boroscope into cyl 5 (known to be the first cylinder to show wear)
and as you can see there is some minor scuffing.(1st image at 50k, 2nd image at 55k) At 55k (1 year later) I did a 2nd oil change. again I did the boroscope and got the 2nd image with notably more piston scuff. I was running Liqui Molly 5w40 leichtlauf. I also ran a mild tune for 4k of the 5k miles. I've now pulled the tune and am sending a sample to blackstone. I'm not looking for magic but if an additive could slow down the rate of damage I'd like to try. I'm interested in the Liqui-moly Ceratec or MoS2. I'm in a colder climate (ny state) and have read that some suspect (mostly porsche owners that seem to be having a cylinder scoring problem) that when cold, the piston warms and expands faster than the aluminum cylinder and can cause this. I've also found more general piston/cylinder info suggesting this is a lubrication issue. I'd welcome any thoughts...Thanks for reading!
This is perfectly normal marks for a cylinder bore on any engine. It’s very premature to be thinking this is the start of the dreaded bore score. If you are worried, run liqui molys ceratec with oil changes or use their molygen line of oils with added molybdenum. This will help protect the engine quite a bit.
Haha accessibility of cheap borescopes is a mixed blessing. Sometimes ignorance is bliss…
I’ve taken apart and rebuilt so many engines I’ve lost count. In the 100’s.
To me, those cylinders (in the first post) look like what you’d expect to see on the thrust side of any cylinder with 50,000 miles.
Thrust side always shows some wear on any engine with that kind of mileage. Especially with the cyl pressures seen in a turbocharged engine.
It’s really not that bad….
Now I’m no fan of aluminum cylinder walls and always prefer sleeves, but think there’s a lot of misdiagnosed issues surrounding these MB V8’s (and other MB engines)
Folks should pay attention to leak down tests more than anything else. Borescopes are handy, but you have to have some context. A failed ring or piston skirt will look much worse than that. I think detonation /pre ignition is a bigger danger than anything else. I believe it’s the cause of many failures here on these, and other manufacturers forums. It’s not limited to Mercedes.
I know it’s no consolation to mjhk97, but Autotrader is littered with M157’s and M278’s over 100k miles….
I would verify by getting a second opinion for sure. Also see if you can get pictures of Cyl 4 and post it here. Unfortunately there’s a lot of incompetence in this (and any) industry these days. ☹️
100% agree here, there are so many misdiagnoses with this bore score that it’s getting a bit silly now. The photos the op posted are exactly what I would expect on a motor when hauling it apart for whatever reason and would think of it as normal markings.
I think we are at the early stage of seeing the effects of sulphurs in North American fuels. Seems to be a lot of concentration on the North American market for this. Honestly I’m seeing it across a lot of brands with all aluminum blocks. Porsche being another with the 4.5 and 4.8 V8 engines and as well as the M97 six in the 996,997 gen 911’s
im new to the merc world having just bought a E550 as a winter beater, but Like yourself I’m not new to engines and have been building them and tuning for most of my life.
looking forward to getting more involved with these posts on the m157 and m278 and putting some ease to a lot of owners minds.
Can always start to do a blackstone oil analysis every oil change, its cheap and gives a great idea and trend ( once you havve a few reports and oil changes) of how the engine is wearing and what's happening.
Frequent oil changes, no long idling warm ups and slow routine to operating temp will go a long way.
See attached PDF
You can see that what is acceptable as cyl wall scuffing would make most forum members cringe. Unless you've inspected many cyl wall failures, its easy to get caught up looking for the perfect bore.
The reality is, if you look in the bore of most engines with 50k and more, you'll see some scuffing. Leakdown & Compression is really the preferred method to diagnose a failure. That goes for Aluminum cyl walls or Cast Iron.
The last two pictures of that document show what a true piston skirt/ cylinder wall failure really looks like....
As I said in my earlier post, borescopes are a mixed blessing. Many of the pictures I've seen posted on forums where people claim to have cylinder wall failure/scuffing look like the top two pictures on the last page of the MB .pdf
As far as mjhk97's failure. As I posted above, I would suggest a second opinion for sure. See if you can get pictures of Cyl 4 and post it here.
@crconsulting super helpful and interesting doc thank you for sharing! I would have assumed nearly all the photos of the minor cylinder wall wear in the doc would mean big issues, but apparently not!!!
@PeterUbers take a look at this doc its quite interesting seeing the MB interpretations of the different types of cylinder wall issues which apparently are considered fairly normal!
I think we are at the early stage of seeing the effects of sulphurs in North American fuels. Seems to be a lot of concentration on the North American market for this. Honestly I’m seeing it across a lot of brands with all aluminum blocks.
I think N.A. gas blends are partially to blame for some of the pre-ignition/detonation issues that seems to be happening to some of the higher compression/high output 4 cylinders such as the M274. Its happening across all brands (Toyota, Subaru etc.) not just Mercedes.
And we're not even talking about Ethanol issues either I believe testing of gas after a catastrophic engine failure might reveal some interesting results....
Originally Posted by jvakos
super helpful and interesting doc thank you for sharing! I would have assumed nearly all the photos of the minor cylinder wall wear in the doc would mean big issues, but apparently not!!!
I think the key takeaway here should be don't get caught up in pictures, but rather rely on a proper leak down test for analysis. I think it's also unrealistic to expect an engine that is run hard, puts out those kind of HP numbers, coupled with hot tunes, relatively high compression (10:1) and north American gas blends to live for 100,000+ miles.
That would be a stretch for coated aluminum cylinder walls living with high cylinder pressures.
Last edited by crconsulting; Dec 20, 2022 at 01:42 PM.
Mercedes SLR McLaren 722 S Is Extremely Rare Example Modified by McLaren
Slideshow: A one-of-one U.S.-spec Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Roadster became even rarer after a factory-backed transformation at McLaren's headquarters.
I believe testing of gas after a catastrophic engine failure might reveal some interesting results....
