Is 400,000 miles (650,000 km) good engine life for 300 Turbo Diesel?

The turbo engines do not last as long as the naturally aspirated diesels. 250K is about when the engines start to show wear and blowby. 396K is exceptional.

Very reasonable life...

It's reasonable. But they do go nearly twice that. Get a leak down test and see if it's the head or the rings. If it's just the head get it remanufactiured of find a good head.

You've had a better experience with Adsit that a lot of people I know.

Balls.

I thought you had to baby this engine until 500,000 miles when it's finally considered broken in. Then it's time to change the oil.

That's about 40% beyond what I'd expect from a routinely maintained 617 engine.

In article ,

-->> T.G. Lambach

I had talked to a Munich taxi driver. He said their MB diesels routinely get ~750K km over 6 years, after which they replace their cars for newer models. Even the CDI's seem to be very durable, despite their complex engines.

Raj

Yeah, me too and they replace them because they at this milage tend to be harder to start, spew smoke and are noise. But, they still have life in them. It's really a cosmetic issue ans a test of what you can put up with. :-)

My engine still runs great once you can get it started, but I am tired of worrying about it starting on cool mornings. Also it is blowing oil out through all the seals bad enough so the rear of the car gets full of black droplets of oil after driving at highway speeds. It blows a liter in about 600 - 1000 km.

It still gets good fuel economy and has about the same power as when new.

What, like every 2000 miles?

;-) DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Mercedes spec is if it gets more than 500 km on a quart of oil that's ok.

If it's hard to start use a block heater.

Richard

-21C today here

Trouble is, it isn't just hard to start, it won't start. Something has gone really haywire, like a broken ring or something. The car just won't run. A small amount of smoke starts to come out of the air intake when I try to start it and lots of grey smoke comes out the exhaust, but it won't fire. Block heater, hot air from hair dryer, 70 degree temperatures - nothing seems to help anymore.

I have new glow plugs, new relay etc. New injectors. Engine just won't run.

Any ideas?

Are the glow plugs actually getting hot?

What happens if you keep cranking it for 90 seconds or more?

Glow plugs get hot when I take one out and watch it. Also when I check with voltmeter I have power at all the plugs. But it does act like the glow plugs don't get hot enough. I think they are though. Why else would thick smoke pour out the exhaust?

I can crank until the cows come home. It might get a few cylinders sounding like they are firing right at first, but instead of building up with more and more good ignitions, the engine just quits getting any good explosions. If I reheat the glow plugs I might get a few more ingitions the first few seconds, but then dies again. I feel like the ULSD we get here in California has a higher flash point that the old fuel we had and that is why my engine had such a precipitous decline. But it is strange because the motor runs great once it starts. Do you think a couple of hundred c.c.s of AFT in a tankful of fuel could be raising the flash point strangely? I always add a bit of ATF for lubricity. Maybe the new ULSD has additives that react strangely with the ATF to raise flash point?

It will do like I described above and then all of a sudden, later, if it starts, it runs smoothly and powerfully. No missing or rough running. Plenty of power to pass at 80 mph. It will easily "pin" the speedometer.

If we tow the car and I drop it into low at about 40 mph it starts right up.

Paul

Ok. Well, either the a) starter isn't spinning it fast enough to start or the battery is weak causing a). Have you Tried jumpers from a running car or a second battery as well or a battery charger with a boost circuit?

Once it's running, will it start again?

The balck smoke and hard starting says to me you should, once you can start it (even if you have to tow it again to start it toi warm it up) run two cans of Lubro Moly Diesel Purge through that biotch.

Or it just may be you have REALLY low compression but I think you'd see tons of black smoke when it's running and get awful fuel milage if this were true.

Does that car have the hand priming pump next to the injecter pump? If so, try hand priming it.

I had similar symptoms that turned out to be an air leak in the fuel line. The car would sit, loose prime and then not start.

If my idea is correct, I suspect that when you tow start it, you are spinning the engine so fast that the fuel system picks up prime.

Doug

Thanks for all the help. I do not see any extra smoke when the car is running, but a lot of oil does blow out the seals, and if you loosen the oil filler cap on the valve cover it gets blown off by the blow by.

It seems like I will have to tow it to get it to start again.

I did have an air leak in the line. I have one length of the old type of fuel line with all the fibre showing on the outside on the return lines. I try the primer pump and now that I have all the leaks (I think) fixed, it is solid when I try to pump it. Before the leaks were fixed the pump would be soft at first (comressing air?) but now it feels like there is nothing but liquid in the system. I have been fighting this problem for at least 5 months, so I have tried quite a few different things. I have replaced the priming pump with a new one from Bosch. The ULSD additives they are experimenting with here dissolved the "O" rings in the original equipment one I had. That was one source of the air in the lines.

I agree that it acts like it needs to spin fast like tow starting to get prime.

It will start again when it has been warmed up, and it gets progressively harder to start the longer it sits, like air is getting in the lines, or, maybe just that the engine is getting cooler. Would a small amount of air in the return system be enough to cause the problem? But I have loosened the injection line on the #3 injector and turned the motor over and I can see fuel coming out when I do that.

Thanks again for trying to figure this out.

I would change all your fuel lines at this point.

When is the last time you had the valve adjusted?