Oil is black after changed. What to do?
 

After each oil change, the oil is immediately black again. I dropped the pan, cleaned and reinstalled. Same result.

What can be done to have cleaner appearing oil? Or should I just give up now?

I have thought about using the "10 minute Engine flush" off the shelf and then running a short period with ATF.

Thoughts?


Thanks for any input.

Use the correct oil and filter and get your head out of the oil pan..
LOL
This has been reported and talked about in the archives also..

Don't worry, completely normal.
You won't get ALL the old oil out and it doesn't take long for the new stuff to turn black.

You have an oil cooler filled with oil.

And an injection pump full of oil as well. Renntag its perfectly normal for the oil to turn black almost instantly. It's the nature of these old diesels.

some install what's known as a bypass oil filter, and use HUGE bypass filters in the submicron range of filtration. others use a centrifuge to separate the solids from the liquids, both methods can get the oil MUCH cleaner than the onboard filter is capable of...
bottom line is, the motors last 400Kmiles with standard filters (which have a tiny bypass filter built in) as long as you don't go too long on the oil between changes, and you replace your filter with a quality filter, your motor will be just fine. (7.5 quarts of clean oil mixed with .8qts of dirty oil is NO issue for this motor.
drive on!

Yep, the oil is always black on the old diesels....just change it every 3-4,000 miles and you'll be fine.

Consider it just an optional feature of the older indirect injection mercedes diesels. You know how hard it is to read the oil level in a modern car with the almost clear transparent oil? Mercedes made quite sure that certainly was not going to be an issue on their diesel cars. :rolleyes:

Blacker than a witches ___ comes to mind. Figure out the three letter word if you have never heard the expression before. I guess I should give a hint. The first and last letters are both Ts.

History claims Rudolph diesel, the individual credited with the invention of the diesel engine ran them on coal dust at one point. His engines never forgot that particular abuse. Until the last while. Now some people are trying to burn anything they can in them once again it seems.

I have no oil cooler on either of my 240s and the oil is still black shortly after the oil change;) :confused:

really?
the 240's don't have even a small cooler?
Hmmm. there is still a lot of black as coal oil in all the passages, but you would think without the cooler you could get at least a day of almond oil... how much oil do you think is in the IP?

If you dont like black oil, dont drive a diesel car. If you think you have a major problem, you could get an oil test done. Even a new diesel motor soon turns oil black.

It's the soot that turns the oil black so quick. Just use quality Diesel rated oil.

An old MB diesel mechanic was telling me a joke recently about oil changes. He was joking around saying "make sure you watch those guys changing your oil. They might lie to you and just say they changed it. You gotta watch them to make sure they're doing it". Brand new oil will be black almost immediately on these old diesels.

The system is functioning as designed.

Yes.

Bad idea. No-very bad idea. Just change your oil and filter every 3-4k miles with a diesel-rated oil of the correct weight for your climate and meeting your personal sythetic/dino preference and you will be fine.

This just shows how important using diesel rated oil is. Diesel rated oils are designed to keep their properties even when fouled with a ton of soot