W210 Glow plug change - stealership or not?
 

I was able to replace my #6 glow plug a few months back without a problem. It was a pain in the ass but nothing went wrong. Well now another glow plug has gone bad and frankly I would rather spend time working on my W111 than my daily driver. Should I spend the 4.5 hours at $85 for the dealer to do the work? I have much more time than money, but my time could be spent more wisely in my opinion. There is also Frank's service, whom I feel is one of the most knowledgable men, who could perform the service. He might not be as fast as the dealership and I really don't want to wait forever to get my daily driver back. He specializes in Mercedes and owns a flawless 1955 300SL convertible among many other cars. He has always been more than helpful when answering any questions I may have and it would be nice to throw him some business.

This is more a matter of opinion than a technical question, but I know you guys would be able to help.

If I had everything laid out like a NASCAR pit stop and I was guaranteed that the GP wouldn't break off, I could replace one in 30-45 minutes, including removing the intake. (Which is not as bad as I had imagined before I did it once.)

The #6 is the hardest one. The rest should be easy as far as access is concerned.

The dealer would probably get it done in the same amount of time and still charge for the full 4.5 hours... :rolleyes:

I have a decent relationship with the parts guys and general manager and completely agree about them charging for 4.5 no matter how long it takes.

I'm going to stop by and see Frank real quick and get a ball park on what he would charge and if I could help him change them or have him help me. Gotta save every penny I can.

I am not sure which Engine goes in a W210 so not sure if it is one of those that the Glow Plugs can get stuck and break off in (if so I guess it can happen no matter who does the job).

If your Engine is one of those where the GPs get stuck; I think I would call or better yet speak in person and ask what their plan would be to reduce the chance it happens and what they do when a GP does break off.

If the answer is we remove the Cylinder Head and send it to a Machine Shop for removal I think you are better off doing the job yourself as you will be more carful to see that the GP does not break than the shop would be.

The reason I say this is that a broken off GP will give the shop more work and $$$ if they pull the Head off. (Pulling off the Head relieves the mechanic of the possiblilty of damaging the Head trying to drill the GP out themselves and give them more money to boot.)

So it looks to me like you would benifit by doing it yourself beyond the $s issue.

For myself since I was a Teenager and even before I had any mechanical training has always been that except for having tires mounted no one but me works on my vehicles.
If I cannot fix the car myself it is time for that car to go.
And, to be sure this has led to some mistakes and at times serious trying struggles on my part. But, in the end what I learn by doing stuff myself has been worth it.

I am going to call Chris the service manager right now and ask what happens if the GP breaks and gets stuck in the head, also if I get charged true labor rates of by the book.

Thanks for the input so far guys!

If one breaks while they work on it you generally get to pay for the extraction too.

To me, dropping my car off to have someone else work on it is a pain, and certainly takes me more time total, generally, than working on it myself.

GPs are finicky on the 606. When they come out easy, the total project takes 1/2 hour start to finish if you're used to pulling the manifold. The worst one I had took two days of never exceeding 70 Nm torque...however, during that time that I was only turning it 1/32 of a rotation each time, I suppose I could've put it back together in the interim and run it if I really needed it as a daily driver.

Warm engine, lots of PB Blaster, torque wrench is the key formula for success as far as I'm concerned.

"more time than money" comment should make the decision a slam-dunk in my book.

If your dealer (or any shop) is willing to give you a price upfront to do it and willing to eat the time it would take to extract it if it broke then it is worth having them do it. I would ask your dealer what happens if the GP breaks while their tech is trying to pull it...if they say "then the clock starts over" I would DIY it and take my chances...worst case is you break it off and pay them to fix it.

DIY
 

I've only replaced two glow plugs in my '96 E300D (W210, OM606NA), #2 and #3, and had no trouble with either. Perhaps those good experiences have affected my attitude but I would recommend doing the job yourself, slowly and carefully. Pull the intake manifold, use lots of your favorite penetrating oil and give it time to soak in. If the plug feels at all sticky, stop and add more penetrating oil. Work the plug in and out a fraction of a turn each way and it should eventually come out. If you are really careful and still have trouble, chances are the dealer or indy would have had trouble too so you are no worse off. Use anti-seize on the new glow plug.

Jeremy

I did mine a month after purchasing w210 in 2005. I had never looked under the hood of a w210 before. If you have some mechanical skills its not difficult. I was very fortunate that they all came out fairly easy. I did a search here and printed the instructions. While I had the manifold off, I cleaned it, the EGR, and the intake flaps. All went smooth, however I did end up breaking a wire to one of the transducers and it needed a trip to dealer to diagnose.

I also did all 6 of mine when I bought my '98 in 2005 - actually I brought the car to a local indy and stood by watching while he did them. I was naive and didn't know the pitfalls. All 6 came out but squeeked and squealed as they turned indicating they were pretty carboned up. We did use PB while removing them and anti-seize on the new ones. We also reamed out the holes.

I have not touched them since (4 1/2 years and 60K miles) and shudder to think what I will do when that dreaded CEL comes on telling me one has given up the ghost. I know I will only replace one at a time this time and hopefully will not experience any broken ones.

One the bright side I am pleased with how long they seem to last. I used OEM parts from the dealer. I think the ones we pulled at 115K were the originals and were all still good so maybe I will get a couple more years out of them after all.

Reading about these engines having the GP sticking and breaking off in the head, seem to me it would be a good idea to remove them every so often.

Like say every XX years or XX miles to decarbon the hole or??? seems like a simplier solution than having to remove a head and paying high dollars to a shop. I screw up is one thing, but a shop screwing up and me paying for it :mad:.

I like my little slow simple 617 :)

Charlie

>>to decarbon the hole

The vital thing is obtaining a good seal at the taper near the joint between the element sheath and the plug body. If the seal here is good, the plugs can be in for as long as you like without getting stuck with carbon.

When I did mine, I could unscrew most of the glow plugs by hand once I had slackened them off; these plugs had no carbon beyond the seal. The 2 glow plugs where combustion gasses had leaked past the taper seal were quite difficult to remove, and squeaked all the way out.

Before re-installation, I took great care to ensure that the taper seal area was clean and bright in all the glow plug holes. However, as the plugs are still OK, I haven't had to remove them again since.

I agree with the above in red.
When I suggested the same quite a few Members felt you should only remove them if they are no good.

My thought was that the longer they remain in the Head the greater the chance they could be stuck.

I also felt this was a job that you have to plan for the worst possibility. Meaning you plan to have backup transprotation to get you to work and leave time open to do the fixing if plug/s get stuck.

If when you do the job you ream/clean the Carbon out of the hole and use a Never-seez type compound on the the threads; if you want to pull them every Year or 2 (and again ream and apply Never-seez) I do not think they will get stuck.

The other end of this is keeping the Fuel Injection Timing and your Injectors in top shape and take your Car out for some high speed drives so as to Reduce the Carbon build up to begin with.