I am still quite the novice when it comes to the OM603 diesel engines, but I know that some of the caveats are the cylinder head, the vacuum pump, and the trap oxidizer if it has not been removed.

Use the search button to find volumninous material on these subjects. GSXR and dieseldiehard are two members that know the ins and outs of these cars. Look for their posts. Learning this info will give you a big leg up on knowing what to expect from these cars.

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Doug

1987 300TD x 3
2005 E320CDI

This is what the "member" said in his eBay description: The car is absolutely stock including the original trap oxidizer which is warranted for life,

I thought there was a recall program to remove all trap oxidizers and go with the diesel cat. Can anyone enlighten me?

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Doug

1987 300TD x 3
2005 E320CDI

How long would it take to recoup the cost if you were paying only 85 cents a gallon? And how would you feel about not ever having to buy any more oil from those wonderful people in the Gulf States.

I'm paying 85 cents a gallon for Used Vegetable Oil. I just stick it in my 1982 300D and go... A 1987 300TD Wagon can carry seven passengers in relative comfort and can also be modified to run on vegetable oil. You know what I’m talking about… the incredible ride and comfort of the estate wagon running at 85 cents a gallon. Think about it...

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Tomas

1979 300D Turbo WVO Converted
Running on 100% Soybean Oil
1987 300TD Diesel Wagon

Now thats what I am talking about! Screw big petroleum - they don't care about us. Support the American farmer - burn more veggie. Can't wait to getr my 1987 TD on the road.

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Doug

1987 300TD x 3
2005 E320CDI

I don't have to, I have neither the time or interest to mess with that stuff. If it was sold at the pump for about the same as regular diesel I'd use it.

If I was MB wagon shopping I'd buy a nice W210 wagon with a M112 V6. $15k will certainly get you a nice example and mileage would be a wash the a 300TD. Considering said 300TD is an old car add $3k to that price for everything it will need.

Plus you can get AWD, and traction control which is great for winter.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

That is definetly part of it. Afterall, I'm flying from Los Angeles to Minneapolis Friday to pick up an '87 and drive it back for exactly that reason. Of course, I'm not even paying half that much for a wagon in similar condition with twice the mileage. Luckily, the owner I'm buying from has all the service/repair receipts dating back to the day it drove off the dealer's lot.

Before looking out of state(CA), I called countless Mercedes dealership service departments and independent shops looking for a lead on '87's. One shop said a guy recently flew out from the Midwest to buy all 4 of their service diesels and take them home to run on discounted agricultural diesel.

But regular diesel is so expensive now that it doesn't make economic sense.

Depends on how many miles you drive a year(regarding vegetable oil). I'm currently spending an average of $260 per month on gas driving a 1991 Honda Accord that gets ~24mpg around for my consulting job. Add in my bi-monthly 800 mile roundtrip winter snowboarding trips and backpacking/camping trips with a girlfriend and two dogs, it's not hard to see why the economics are there in my case. I spend aprox. $4,000+ a year on gas. Running on commerical diesel would save me approx $1,000 from the extra mileage - nice.

But, by running waste vegetable oil(WVO), I'll be giving myself a $3-4k a year aftertax raise without too much extra effort. (I'm already max'd out on reasonable deductions)

[stepping onto soapbox]
Equally important, (cause I'm greenie Californian) I'll be doing my insignificant part to lessen our country's dependence on Middle East oil. Vegie oil/biodiesel certainly isn't the sole answer to our country's fuel problem (there's no single solution), but they are surely one of several, if employed, that can help this country back towards some semblence of energy independence. We just need 20% of drivers to switch from low mileage SUV's/trucks to 24+mpg passenger cars. And the environmental/emission benefits would be massive.
[stepping off soapbox]

And now, back to our regular programming....

You should read my post in another forum:
Post from another MBZ forum

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Tomas

1979 300D Turbo WVO Converted
Running on 100% Soybean Oil
1987 300TD Diesel Wagon

My sentiments, exactly. I just think that if one out 4 or 5 people simply decided to make some small changes in their lives, we could yield significant improvements in our world. Nothing radical, just trade a few commonly accepted inconveniences for others.

In the case of WVO/SVO, I will be trading 60 minutes a month(4x15mins) fueling up at gas stations for ~90-120 minutes once a month actively collecting, filtering, mist-washing, and dewatering oil in the semi-automated system I am building.

The return for that extra 12-16 hours a year is a $3,000+ a year savings AND the satisfaction of knowing I am contributing significantly less particulate emissions to our air. That roughly works out to paying myself ~$188 an hour for the time invested. It's no small understatement to say that is more than actually earn in my job.

At the same time, I'm doing my part to reduce our dependence on Middle East oil. The more freedom we have from that chokehold, the greater our options in forcefully dealing with the corrosive ideology spreading from that region.[end political rant]

Although, I have to admit that after 6 months of searching for a great condition '87 wagon and seeing how few there really are left, I have been seriously wavering towards keeping it in stock condition. Some people around here have made very convincing arguments for keeping the (relatively)few left as they were designed.

Rather than convert it right away, as originally planned, I am now going to wait a few months to see how I feel. The wagon already gets great mileage, maybe I can get the same enviro satisfaction running it on 100% biodiesel.

And returning to the original subject of this thread, I wonder how much higher the price can go for these wagons?

A month ago it was $12k, the month before that it was $9k. Seems like 4 months ago the average was $6k. As they've been saying about California real estate - "The bubble's got to burst sometime".

Interesting thread here.

I read in one post implications that burning WVO produces less particulates than burning refined diesel. I've not heard this claim before. Are there any credible sources that can be cited in support of this claim?

Let's do a little math. Let's assume that a TD costs $5K more than an equivalent TE (I think it's currently more like $7K-$9K). And that WVO can be had for the $.85/gallon an earlier poster claimed. How long to recapture the price premium for the diesel car?

Start by calculating the fuel cost per mile. For the TE, I'll assume 20MPG. (The Munroney sticker for an M103 TE is 17/23, from memory.) At $3/gallon it comes to $.15/mile. On the TD let's assume 25MPG. (Munroney says 23/27 for this car, those numbers are pretty much minimums once the trapox has been removed.) At $.85/gallon for WVO fuel cost amounts to $.034.mile. So fuel cost savings on the TD amount to $.116/mile. Given these costs, it takes 43,100 miles to recapture a $5K price premium for the diesel vehicle. At a $9K premium it's 77,500 miles. And those numbers understate how long is required to recapture the higher initial investment because they don't account for the time value of money.

I'm ignoring any differences in maintenance and repair cost between the otto and diesel cycle engines. Frankly, I'm not sure which one would have the advantage.

Lastly, I find it difficult to believe that collecting, filtering, and using WVO only requires a 100% time premium over fueling at a commercial gas station. Can anyone describe the steps they take to maintain a supply of WVO. Must be easier than it sounds.

- JimY

In my case, I drive to Berkeley, CA and pull up to a pump and fuel up. (.85 Gallon) Then I drive off feeling pretty...and smelling like french fries.

Has anyone considered the fact that Diesels don't need tune-ups? No spark-plugs. How about the claim that they will run for over 500K miles without an engine overhaul? What about the durability of Diesels versus gas engines?

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Tomas

1979 300D Turbo WVO Converted
Running on 100% Soybean Oil
1987 300TD Diesel Wagon

Wow, interesting. At that price is it some type of experimental and/or state subsidized product, or is good old capitalism making a profit at that price? This is the first I've heard of any non-homebrew WVO recycling. After ten years I got to like the smell of diesel, burning WVO would probably just make me hungry all the time.

Well, I explicitly ignored that in my analysis. The M103 has plugs, wires, distributor cap and rotor. And a propensity to blow head gaskets. But the OM603 has glow plugs, injector nozzles and a reputation for shredding heads and vacuum pumps. I expect it's luck of the draw with a particular car.

One of the reasons Hattie and me go around pointing people toward M112 engined 210 wagons is because that engine does not have any significant problems. No head gaskets, no vacuum pumps, no wiring harnesses. The early ones had harmonic balancer issues, but those are all gone now. Fuel mileage is within 1MPG of the old 300TD, it's an LEV (or ULEV, I forget). You can get one for the same price 300TDs are fetching and it's, uh, 10 or 12 years newer. What's not to like?

And yeah, I still like the 124.193 better too. I simply choose to have more free time and a less interesting car.

- JimY

Unfortunately, the vast majority of pre-2002 research was based on a (now realized) flawed assumption of using vegetable oil as a fuel at ambient tempetures. The problem with working at those tempetures is that VO tends to have a viscosity 30-60 times higher than diesel fuel at 40-70 degrees F leading to incomplete atomization/vaporization at the injector heads. The result is incomplete burns, "coking" and carbonization in the cylinder and on rings, and significantly higher emissions. So, the results from teh 1980-90's test are generally negative due to engine damage.

Current VO'ers use engine coolant based in-tank heat exchangers, hose-in-hose fuel lines, coolant or electric heated fuel filters, and electric heaters for the fuel injector lines. As a result the VO is ~120-180 degrees before entering the injector making it's viscosity similar to regular diesel. This has cured the carbon deposit and atomization problems, increased efficiency, and significantly reduced emissions.

Sadly, there are a lot of unsubstantiated claims of 40-70% reductions in particualte emissions being thrown around by VO proponents, but i have had a hard time finding the actual studies these claims are based on. It seems a lot is based on an EPA biodiesel study which I am not sure are directly comparable due to the existence of methyl esthers. Unfortunately, most recent research has been on biodiesel due it's far greater market potential and organized lobby/industry.

One thing it is fairly safe to state as fact is that Sulfur emissions are reduced 100% because sulfur does not exist in vegetables oils like petroleum-based products.

Here is one study on straight VO as fuel:
Advanced Combustion Research for Energy from Vegetable Oils (ACREVO)
Contract No: FAIR1-CT95-0191
Date Prepared: July 2001

The overall combustion performance of the rapeseed oil are very satisfactory in comparison with the diesel fuel while the rapeseed oil produces almost 40 % less soot than diesel fuel...Further it can be stressed, that the shown emission results of unburned hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), nitric oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) confirm the advantages of RME in comparison to Diesel fuel...Concerning polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) there is significantly better emission behaviour of RME in comparison to Diesel fuel. There are even greater emission advantages for other fatty acid methyl esters and with oxidising catalyst no disadvantages for TESSOL. In general there is a very low PAH-level of vegetable fuels because of chemical structure (there is no PAH in vegetable fuel in contrast to Diesel fuel).

The SVO/WVO conversion company Greasecar sites this data from some unlisted study.

Here is the largest collection of studies/papers that I know of.

Great question, Jim. I originally considered TE option and was shocked to see how cheaply they were selling for.

First of all, the vast majority of MB WVO greasers are buying cheap cars in the $900 to sub-$4,000 range. Only a tiny, tiny, fraction are touching the $6,000+ offerings.

Also, it is a safe assumption that anyone paying the current highest prices, 150-250% more($9k-15k) than the historical market value, for the cars is probably not too concerned with the economics of the purchase. I think it will helpful to everyone curious about this "fad" to know the hidden costs that most VO's don't talk about. I am only speaking of those who follow the letter of the law.

Let's use my situation as an example:

I drive approx. 12,000 a year for work and another 5,000+ on camping/snowboarding trips. On the trips, my girlfriend and I have historically taken her 1991 Ford Bronco (V8). She now has a Ford Freestyle which gets ~24 mpg highway, but the Bronco is what got me looking into alternatives.

I average 17mpg city and 24 highway with my former '91 Accord. Unfortunately, Los Angeles traffic makes just about everything a city type drive during the week, so we'll call it 20mpg average or 600 gallons per year. Her Bronco averages ~16 mpg on trips or ~315 gallons per year. So, I burn approx. 915 gallons per year at ~$3.20 per gallon - ~$3,000 per year on gas.

California requires an "inedible kitchen grease" collection permit or license, these are actually issued by the Dept. of Agriculture. for ~$125 per year. The primary stipulation for the permit/license is a $1 million umbrella liability insurance policy which runs approx. $170-300 per year.

Next, the IRS requires (a debated) $0.18 or $0.24 per gallon road use tax be paid on all oil actually used(not collected) for auto fuel. So, for me that would be 480 gallons to drive the 12k per year at 25mpg and 156 gallons to go 5k miles at 32mpg highway(so, the owner of the 300TD I'm buying claims). That's 636 gallons to drive those same 17,000 miles per year requiring $114 or $152 in tax. Let's use the higher number to be safe.

For me, that is $200+152+125 devided by 636 gallons = $0.75 per gallon or $477 per year total. The current average gas price in the part of Los Angeles where I live for the last 6 months has been $3.20-$3.30 a gallon, so we are looking at ~$2.50 a gallon savings. 17,000 miles X $2.50 per gallon savings would yield ~$2,288 per year savings over my current situation.

Now, back to the gasoline 300TE. It would take 600 gallons to travel the 12,000 work miles(@20mpg) I travel and 210 gallons for the 5k vacation(@24mpg) for a total of 810 gallons per year. At $3.20 per gallon that's ~$2,600 per year.

$2,600-$477= $2,123 per year savings from the 300TD over the 300TE.

I'm buying my '87 300TDT for ~$6,500 tomorrow meaning that I will recoup the ~$2,500 price difference in approximately 15 months depending on gas prices. After that, the car would nearly pay for itself over to following 3 years. In my case, yes. I'm spending a bit more than the average Greaser to simply and semi-automate my collection and refining. Though, the system is not complete yet. I've already ramblen on long enough, but perhaps tonight I can give a brief overview to the system I am assembling.

I thought they were worse than the W124s and that the quality is not as good. I think this all has to do with the timing. Isn't the W210 Mercedes response to the competition from Japan, which caused them to cheapen things to compete on price?

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Doug

1987 300TD x 3
2005 E320CDI

I think it depends on your definition of quality. I think the 210 has fewer "significant" mechanical issues than the 124 did in its day - no blown head gaskets, no self-recycling wiring harnesses, etc. But in other ways it's not as good. Both my 210 sedan and wagon have seemed a bit more prone to squeeks and rattles than my 124 sedan and wagon. I've dented the sheetmetal on the roof of the 210 wagon while mounting up my Yakima rack - on the 124 the same treatment didn't even scuff the paint. The interior trim of the 210 doesn't seem quite as robust as the 124. (Excepting map pocket upholstery. Owners of old 124s know what I'm talking about...)

The 210 wagon has 10 airbags, skid control, brake assist, etc. Those technologies didn't even exist when the 124 was built, and they add a certain kind of quality. The 210 has killer air conditioning and a reasonably nice sounding audio system.

So I dunno which one has more quality, it depends on what you value most.

- JimY