270 CDI 2002; Turbo opinion (UK)

Aug 27, 2008 6 Replies

Hi Would you guys comment? I've been told by an experienced user that one should always leave the car running for 2 minutes prior to driving and before switching off.. He said that mercedes dealerships deny it but this prolongs the life of the turbo in diesel cars.


Unnecessary although it won't "hurt" the diesel turbo to do so, but it's your fuel that's being wasted.

One consideration after fast driving, for any engine, especially gas powered turbo engines, is to let the motor idle for a few minutes prior to shut down to avoid "coking" the lube oil inside the hot turbo. Diesel exhaust is about 75% the temperature of a gas engine so there's less thermal stress on its turbo vs. a turbo on a gasoline engine.

Turbo failure on M-B diesels is very rare; the turbo typically lasts an engine's overhaul life.

That's sound advice for all cars, incl non-turbo, especially the bit about taking it easy until [the engine] warms up.

DAS

To send an e-mail directly replace "spam" with "schmetterling"

Thanks for all of that - what about the issue of that you should ensure that there is no lube starvation in the turbo bearing when you next start up.

Sam

It's common for MB diesels to go 300K+ miles without doing anything special. You don't want oil starvation at any bearing, but that has been taken care of by the designers to the extent possible. There isn't anything you're going to do about it. Stop worrying and enjoy the car.

Your opinions are valuable and your main point is excellent. Many thanks to you all

It's common for MB diesels to go 300K+ miles without doing anything special. You don't want oil starvation at any bearing, but that has been taken care of by the designers to the extent possible. There isn't anything you're going to do about it. Stop worrying and enjoy the car.

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