Sunil Hari wrote:
I was at Wal-Mart last night and saw a beautiful 350SDL Turbo in the
lot - 126 body style, shiny light brown paint, no rust at all, perfect
chrome, not a single scratch, perfect leather, shiny tires and BBS
wheels. But the odo said 331Kmi on it.
First, were these 3.5L engines electronically controlled like they
were in the W140's, or were they still mechanically/vacuum driven?
Second, is this a complete anomaly, or is this kind of mileage
attainable in a 350SDL?
I left a note asking if he'd replaced the engine yet ...
All of the OM60x engines (whether on 201, 124, 126, 140, 210 chassis
cars) used similar mechanical injection pumps. All of them after about
1985 had electronics involved (in varying degrees), but the only serious
difference from the ones used in the mid '80s was the incorporation of
circuitry that made EGR defeat difficult.
Only about half of the OM603.97x engines have failed despite the basic
design flaw they ALL shared. The other half of them are still running
(but are poised to fail if exactly the right set of circumstances
occurs). The car you saw has 331kmi - over 14 years so that's almost
25kmi a year. That suggests LOTS of highway miles - maybe ALL highway
miles. MOST of the engines that have already failed had less than 150kmi
on them when they failed and many had less than 100kmi. Most cars with
failed engines seemed to be driven 10kmi or less per year. Most of those
cars had half or more of their miles in city traffic. Take a high
mileage OM603.97 engine and subject it to lots of city stop and go
driving and I'll wager it will fail within a few years.
Marshall
--
Marshall Booth (who doesn't respond to unsigned questions)
"der Dieseling Doktor" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
'87 300TD 181Kmi,'87 190D 2.5 199Kmi, '84 190D 2.2 227Kmi, '85 190D 2.0
159Kmi, '87 190D 2.5 turbo 234kmi
Diesel Technical Advisor MBCA, member GWSection
http://www.dhc.net/~pmhack/mercedes/mbooth1.htm
