W124 diesel difference

Any disel with a six cylinder motor is better and longer-lived. P.

I am the original owner of one, no major problems with the engine. I've replaced the glow plugs twice, some coupling on the tranny twice, the A/C is a poor performer and for some reason the car eats tires up. I've replace the struts in the front twice, and assorted bushings. I've only done the brakes twice. All in all the car is great, I have over 188k on it and it seems as if it is just breaking in.

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I hope you're not thinking of the 3.5 liter mercedes diesel engine. That six cylinder engine was well known for creating oval cylinders.

The 3 liter six cylinder 603 engine built from '86 - '87 has problems of it's own. Although, I've read about people driving them to high mileage without much work, everyone I know who has that engine has replaced the cylinder head. I have 4 friends with the engine and I've replaced heads on two of them myself. The other two were replaced by someone else. And the bare head for that engine is expensive...it's $1,500 at dealer wholesale price. I understand the Mercedes redesigned the head for that engine. Hopefully, the new head will not crack like the older design.

I asked Metric (Mercedes engine rebuilders) about the '86 - '87 six cylinder engine. They tell me that nearly everything needs to be replaced when they take one apart to rebuild it. Everything is undersized. Head bolts are of smaller diameter, injector lines are thinner, etc. The 5 cylinder diesel engines may not be as smooth or as powerful as the six cylinder engines but at least they don't seem need new heads.