New Engine Required?

[tinytim]

I've just had a major breakdown in my 2001 E280 W210. Four of the injector packs collapsed at once and the other two display intermittent faults on the diagnostics machine (from an independent). Naturally the engine stopped and I had a lift home from the AA. The car now has had:
(a) new Injector packs + plugs
(b) one new Cat - burnt out

A bolting together of the bits and taking it for a run up the road revealled a tappity noise (engineer-speak). So the guy recommended an oil change -
(c) oil change - are here reveals another major issue:

petrol found in the oil filter. Changing the oil/filter and running for a couple of minutes revealed 'bits of aluminium' in the filter. Chap reckons that the bearings have gone with petrol in the sump breaking down the oil. His diagnosis NEW ENGINE!

Chaps: if his diagnosis is correct, do you agree that I need a new engine?
If so, how much?
Any idea what Mercedes might say about this?

Any advice would be most welcome!

 

[jberks]

Whats the mileage?
How was it running before all these problems?
Has it been properly maintained?

Injectors going down -ok and them taking the cat with them -possible but none of that should have mechanically killed the engine. Main bearings should be good for huge mileages. However, if you had a problem that has allowed fuel into the oil (can't think of one, head gasket perhaps but even then a fault severe enough should have been obvious well before it did any real damage), then the oil would have been compromised and all bets are off. Its all a bit odd though. I could imagine one injector failing but several of them at the same time? Something must have caused that failure. Has it overheated?

If you trust the mechanic, I'd suggest the next step is to strip the engine and identify the problems. Also, ring round the breakers and see if you can source a 280 engine. Then armed with that info, plus what is actually wrong with your engine and approx cost to recon it if realistic, you can make a decision on the best way forward. You will also know what the problem was and can discuss with Mercedes, assuming you have a full and detailed service history.
I'm not sure how they will be if the diagnosis is not from the dealer though and you'd be insane to involve a dealer in such a labour intensive task as stripping an engine so I suspect you may actually be better on your own.

Actually - re-reading the post - do you mean coil packs?

 

[tinytim]

Yes, I do mean the coil packs.

 

[tinytim]

Oh yes, the mileage is 77,000. Only had it 6 months after buying it from a leasing company. FSH by MB until the last service.

 

[Ian Brown]

Sounds like your problem is with the ecu or the lambda probe causing the engine to over fuel hence the petrol in the oil before the injectors finally packed in.
You would need to have the engine stripped down to inspect the extent of the damage and have the electric item’s checked to prevent this happening again, you might get away with getting the crankshaft reground and a new set of bearings fitted but it might also need a re-bore as the bores would have been washed with petrol diluting the oil.

 

[mjtray]

Was there no evidence before hand....ie very heavy fuel consumption?

 

[996jimbo]

Can't help with the diagnosis but I am interested in the problem - short of putting petrol in through the oil filler cap, how does petrol actually get in to the oil?

 

[Ian Brown]

Can't help with the diagnosis but I am interested in the problem - short of putting petrol in through the oil filler cap, how does petrol actually get in to the oil?

The reason is over fuelling in some way, too much petrol entering the cylinders and not getting burnt and running down the bores past the rings into the sump which can be caused by bad injectors or a weak spark

 

[996jimbo]

The reason is over fuelling in some way, too much petrol entering the cylinders and not getting burnt and running down the bores past the rings into the sump which can be caused by bad injectors or a weak spark

Surely for enough unburnt petrol to get past the piston rings there would be no burn in that cylinder ie a missfire? And surely for sufficient quantity to screw the oil up you'd be looking at several cylinders missfiring? In other words you'd be aware that something was seriously amiss quite quickly?

I suppose a strip down will reveal all but petrol getting in to the oil and causing bearing failure before any problems were apparent seems unlikely - a bearing isn't going to fail the moment it comes in to contact with oil-diluted-with-a-little-petrol is it?

 

[jberks]

Tim,
reading between the lines, I assume its been running badly for a while and you've been putting it off? So, its now gone from needing a couple of coil packs to a whole new engine.
A lesson there for all of us I think.

 

[clive williams]

From the description, it sounds as though one or all of the faulty injectors failed open and flooded the engine with petrol from the common fuel rail. To notice petrol in the oil means that there was a considerable excess of petrol being pumped it as small amounts would simple mix with the oil and would not be noticeable.

If there was an excess of petrol then I'm not suprised that the bearings have run - petrol is not a good lubricant.

With such a catastrophe then a new engine or rebuild will almost certainly be required. Personally, I would prefer to rebuild the engine as it will then be to a known quality if I did it myself.

Best to bite the bullet then and stump up the cash.

Clive

500E
E320CDIT210

 

[tinytim]

Interestingly, the car was running fine. Last service 5000 miles ago. No reported problems.

Re-build it myself - not likely. I'm a computer expert not a car expert. Looks like I need to drop the whole thing in the skip...

End of Merc Ownership for me. Going back to BMW's (had 3) and Fords (had loads) once I can offload this pile of junk.

 

[jberks]

To be fair, whatever the cause, I've never heard of this happening before. I suspect you've just been very unlucky (or else there was something seriously wrong with it before you got it and thats why they sold it). Catastrophic failure can occur on anything at any time. To be fair, I've actually heard of more of these kinds of issues on beemers than mercs, not to say that its common on either. The vast majority of these engines are still going strong with 200k on them. At 70k when I sold it, mine was still loosening up.

I had a similar experience. Bought a 2l dohc Ford granada having experienced this engine before and knowing that it's pretty bullet proof. Mine blew a piston 2 weeks in. Sh.t happens I guess.

Just out of curiosity - how well do you know the mechanic. If you trust him, fair enough. If not it may be worth a second opinion. Don't give up just yet. If you sell the car in its current state, it will cost you far more than if you fix it and run it.

 

[television]

With a coil pack gone(common fault), that would knock out that cylinder, this also means that the car has been driven for a fair time on 5 cylinders.
With 4 packs gone the engine would not run, and no petrol would end up in the oil. To dilute 8 liters of oil is an awful lot of driving on 5 cylinders.
Something does not add up here.

Malcolm

4 coil packs at once is unheard of

 

[996jimbo]

Just out of curiosity - how well do you know the mechanic. If you trust him, fair enough. If not it may be worth a second opinion. Don't give up just yet. If you sell the car in its current state, it will cost you far more than if you fix it and run it.

Some while back a member of this forum had a problem with transmission fluid in his coolant water or something along those lines and the garage were recommending all sorts. It eventually turned out that someone had stuck the wrong fluid down the wrong filler neck.

I'm no mechanic and no expert but I've never heard of petrol getting in to the big end and knackering the bearings. And the short timescale we seem to be talking about just makes it seem so unlikely.

Like I said I'm no expert but it would be interesting to hear a second opinion from someone who is.

 

[mjtray]

Just a quick comment......I had a E240 with the same engine but smaller capacity obviously and that had a coil pack fail causing one or two cylinders to close down (can't remember)

The thing that amazed me was that the engine still remained remarkably smooth and had only the slightest of mis-fires.....couldn't really feel anything whilst driving, it was only when you listened to the engine with the bonnet up that you could hear that it wasn't running on all cylinders

Took it too my indi, who said that he had seen this before on these engines and that it often resulted in unburnt fuel collecting in the Catalytic converter which then became flooded in urnburnt fuel and subsequently ruined.

If left for too long, the unburnt fuel would also get past the piston rings and dilute the engine oil.

Mine luckily had not got to this stage, but I did have a further problem with the engine, in so much that it was burning huge amounts of oil, despite only covering 45,000 miles. Turns out that these engines do lnot like pottering around town and easily block their oil breather pipes, which causes a vacumn and oil to be dragged past the piston rings and burnt.......mine had lived in London all of its life!!!!!. Was told that it was a rare problem but that there was a technical bulletin on this problem produced by Mercedes HQ

Sounds as if your car may have been driving on only 4/5 cylinders for some time.

 

[kth286]

mjtray

Normally if a coil pack goes down, the ecu senses this via the current flow in the coil circuit and will immediately shut off the appropriate electrical fuel injector on that cylinder (or cylinders).

This was introduced on my W124, back when HFM electonic engine control came along on the 104 engine.

It therefore preserves the catalyst.

So, therfore it must have been something quite catastrophic such as fuel injector failed in open position etc as was mentioned by a previous post.

Off subject - did you know that if the ecu senses 'pinking' (from the knock sensors) the ecu will retard the ignition just on the knocking cylinder, so that full power remains on the other cylinders (again introduced on the 104 engine).

Regards

 

[clive williams]

mjtray

Normally if a coil pack goes down, the ecu senses this via the current flow in the coil circuit and will immediately shut off the appropriate electrical fuel injector on that cylinder (or cylinders).

This was introduced on my W124, back when HFM electonic engine control came along on the 104 engine.

It therefore preserves the catalyst.

Regards

I had a distributor cap fail on the 500E some time ago and the motor went onto 4 cylinders. The fuel was shut off supposedly to the cylinders fed by the dizzy but the cats still took a horrible beating as the exhaust temperaure went hot enough to melt/burn the underseal. The only way this could of happened is by unburnt fuel being dragged into the exhaust and when it was back together the CO reading had increased over previously. So IMO the fuel shut off is not so reliable as expected.

Clive

500E
E320CDIT210

 

[kth286]

Clive

What you may not realise is that the E320 HFM engine is more advanced than yours - it was the most advanced engine found in the W124 series.

The engine performance in terms of bhp per litre is greater in the E320 than in the E500.

It has no rotating parts in the ignition (such as distributors) it is all electronic with integrated ignition and fuelling all controlled by the one engine ecu.

If your engine experiences pinking or knocking, all the cylinders are retarded
thus reducing the whole engine performance, unlike the 104 engine where just the knocking cylinder is retarded for protection, and full power is kept on the other 5 cylinders - clever stuff.

It was so good it was carried forward to the W210 E class that followed.

The only reason that the following generation of engines were V6 was to make them physically shorter (3 cylinders in length) so that the next generation of cars could have more sloping bonnets and front ends without a big bulge to accommodate the engine as you witness in today's cars.

In fact the engine that followed was a retrograde step, as was recently admitted by Merc themselves.

There was no more power produced, no more torque, the engine had to have 2 expensive spark plugs per cylinder, there were only 3 valves per cylinder and they had to build in a harmonic balancer system to keep the engine sweet.

It is only now that Merc have reverted back to 4 valves per cylinder and have acknowledged it is a far better concept.

Regards

 

[television]

Kieth286
There was no more power produced, no more torque, the engine had to have 2 expensive spark plugs per cylinder, there were only 3 valves per cylinder and they had to build in a harmonic balancer system to keep the engine sweet.

It is only now that Merc have reverted back to 4 valves per cylinder and have acknowledged it is a far better concept.

Regards[/QUOTE]

I have already had a bad week, don't be quite so hard on my 112 engine
it is 50kg lighter, and 12% more ecconomical, tiny bit more power and a pig to get the sparking plugs out, and I do not need a pair of steps to clean the bonnet.

malcolm