To what I read, the OP isn't considering an MB diesel with the DPF OR adblue compartments.

The DPFs and adblue were started IIRC on the W212 sedans, and the absence of a spare wheel and tire can be rectified by buying one and storing it in the trunk, cargo area, or outside the vehicles.

The MB high-pressure fuel delivery systems have been around for many years, and unless I'm wrong, has not been an issue. Not in any of the (3) MB diesels I've owned anyway.

That would be correct. No Blue.

Such a valuable resource, this inter-web thing. If the first person I called, who had a 2005 E320 CDI for sale, had visited this forum, he may have not bought the car he was now trying to sell 5 months later. He scoured the country until he found the "perfect" car at a non-MB dealer in OH. In the first 3 months he had the oil cooler seals fail, the turbo oil seal fail, that resulted in a failed servomotor. Many dollars later he is trying to sell it way above market to recover his costs.

It was interesting to see these issues crop up as I waded through carfax service reports.

Thanks to this forum, I know about these potential failures and will look for a car they have been dealt with on, or discount my offer accordingly.

Thanks all. If I do actually purchase a vehicle, I'll let you know.

[QUOTE=jcyuhn;3286344]I am not a fan of the OM642 V6 diesel used in the ML (and many other Mercedes models). The reason being it has two common and expensive repairs. The first is a leaking oil cooler, located deep within the "V" of the engine. The typical repair cost is $2500. The second is the intake port shutoff motor. The OM642 has throttle flaps in the intake manifold. They are used to create manifold vacuum to increase EGR flow. EGR is used to control NOX formation in these pre-Adblue vehicles. The motor frequently fails, typical repair costs are $1500. You can google up discussions on these repairs and make your own decision on how frequently or rarely they occur.

Have to agree here; Wife has an 08 320 CDI. Love the looks , love the ride; Love the power and smoothness of the om642. Hate the future potential costs of ownership.
Started with oil in the garage; removed the lower panels and lived with cardboard oil stains on garage floor. Oil was coming from oil cooler seal
Then an oil leak developed at the turbo inlet seal and trashed out the swirl motor. Spent a weekend taking the top end of the motor down to the vee to replace seals on the oil cooler; Could not believe the amount of crud in the intake and related plumbing. Cost at dealer for oil cooler seals and swirl motor would have been $3,000 minimum; but they likely would have changed the intake manifold instead of cleaning. So might even up it the cost of the intake.

Oil: MB229.51; gotta use it; go with pentosin; I've heard that there is less buildup of crud over time compared to mobil 1 esp; not sure why.

It's got 120k on it now. If mercedes could somehow get the smoothness of the 642 and the longevity of the 617; they'd truly have something.

I am a diesel guy; but knowing what I now know about the the 642; I would have replaced the wifes ML430 (165k) with an ML350 gasser; no doubt about it.

Oil only.
1. You can use a borescope to peek at the aft part of the oil cooler. Without a borescope you Can't really see nothing from the top side as all is covered by fuel filter, intake manifold, turbocharger and swirl motor.
2. From the bottom you can look for traces of oil where the block meets the bell housing. Most of oil will be visible coming from the left side but not really traceable to anyplace specific as it is coming from a through hole drain in the vee of the engine block.
Old seals were reddish orange; new seals are purple.
Hope this helps

Yeah I am aware of the icing issue....so far even with this brutal winter, no sign or issue of it....however, from what I have read, should it damage the engine, VW will cover it. Haven't seen or heard any cases where they didn't. On cars under the 5 year/60k warranty of course. Beyond that you're on your own if you have no extended warranty. I don't plan on having mine beyond 36k absolute max....too many expensive things to go wrong...can buy an entire W210 in nice shape for the price of the high pressure diesel pump. :eek: Overall the car is not a step up at all from an older MB of W201/W124 or newer....plan is to replace with gasser W210 or W211 wagon, or (gasp) a minivan.

Well? did you ever find a vehicle?

I own both vehicles you seek.

The E320 is a rocket, easy to work on and a dream to drive, but it's getting old in the big scheme of things. I've put about 50K on mine over the last 4 years, it's been mindlessly reliable, oil changes are easy, changed one glow plug, brakes, all easy to fix, it just plain works all the time, and it starts in the cold like it's 90º I've seen close to 40MPG with this one.

Our ML320 CDI is as many say here a major pain in the ass to work on, i.e., the ball of rubber bands under the hood is spot on. I've done struts, brakes, filters, etc., you just need to get used to unpacking and repacking it back together, otherwise it's a fantastic highway vehicle and as many as 30MPG when my wife drives!

In the end, the new cars like the aforementioned are so much more reliable, and at the same time more DAS dependent. That said, it seams I was always fixing my W201s and W124s, but these two newer units are far less needy of futzing with crap that should never break.

You can see by my updated signature that my wife now has a AWD vehicle to drive this winter.

Too Funny, Our ML is also my wife's primary transport. She loves it.

No issues with WVO and the CDI yet?

MB is pulling diesels sales put of IL because the state mandated up to B20.

PS, I looked for about 4-6 months for each of my rigs, and went with private party vehicles. Interestingly, my older and since gone MN vehicles all had pesky oil leaks I attributed to the -20° to operating tempuratures and back down again to -0°, and all 3 of my warn climate purchase are tight and dry, and no rust either!

The E320 has heated AND ventilated seats and fold down rear seats, 2 huge and very rare options. If it were me to do again, I'd make sure a 05-06 CDI has SAT radio and Bluetooth, I've tried to ad both, which is doable, but unless the base equipment was spec new, aquieing and adapting the pieces is nearly impossible.

Stay warm tonight, MPR just said it was 23° in I-falls! eek!

greg keep us up to date on how you do with the 07 ml
i have an 08 and have not had any big issues with it

bought it with 99,000 a year and a half ago
it is my back up car, have put 26,000 on it i think

mine did have the power steering issue replaced/fixed before i bought it and i few other things that were good repairs to have done and they were done under warranty with mb

did my homework before buying and knew it was a good thing that some of that stuff had been upgraded/replaced

i have had to do some oil hoses, the plastic part that holds the turbo inlet orange gasket was cracked and i replaced that- pricey
if you have any oil leaks i would start there, pull the whole thing out and check it over good, we could not see this from the top
i insisted the mechanic pull it all out and it was badly cracked on the bottom, but i think that entire piece has been upgraded now- hopefully i will have no more problems with it

no more oil leaks since then
mine has not had the oil cooler leak yet

i get 28.5-30 every tank - summer and winter
that is babying the gas pedal some

it has done awesome in the mud for me on my dirt road to my house, that is why i bought it

so far my truck has been very reliable, other than the small oil leaks no problems

i am not a huge fan of the way it rides, changed the shocks/struts and it may have helped a little but did not think it rode much better
just a little harsh and too truck like for me

other than that have been very happy

good luck with yours

should have added my tailgate is hinky too

sometimes works perfect and sometimes sticks

i need to get it looked at but been too busy

that is something you hear a lot about being repaired etc, have a feeling it is not a great set up

but livable

Tailgate issues - check your battery - I suspect the pump times out if you have low voltage and it can't build enough pressure.

With all doors closed put the key in I position (just the radio on)
Press the R button 3 times in the center of the cluster
The LCD should show you the battery voltage
Glow and crank the engine and see what the voltage drops to.

Mine was going down to 9 volts on glowing and 6 volts on cranking
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/ml-gl-g-wagen-r-class-unimog-sprinter/351627-w164-battery-replacement.html

Once I replaced the battery last February I have not had any issues with the tailgate since. Even when parked with the rear end up on my sloping driveway. Not sure if it was the better voltage or cycling power that did the trick but it definitely did for me.

I think you're thinking of grease lightnig.

If you run WVO on the 642 engine you need to reflash the ecm and get rid of the post injection cycle and DPF. It will clog faster, run the cycle more often and the byproducts of WVO will end up in the engine oil from the post injection cycle and the oil will turn to jelly-sludge. This has nothing to do with the quality of the fuel, just byproducts of the oils used. Change the oil often and delete the DPF for long life or you will hate the vehicle.

I love mine, it has been 3.5 years now and 60k miles of bliss, just ran 5k mile trip to Florida with 3 adults and 2 kids, 5 weeks and just an amazing machine. Even with a huge Thule box on the roof, cargo rack out back it still turned in 28-30mpg USA, running a good speed but easy on the uphills. It really disliked Florida diesel fuel, not sure what % of biodiesel is mandated as some pumps were labeled B20 (which I avoided) and others were not labeled anything but it was not great fuel, tank was usually empty at 500 miles, vs minimum 600 average.

on my tailgate issues i already have a new battery in the past year

mine seems to screw up in the locking mechanism at the bottom, it is not weak to lift it or close it

it start to open, get stuck and then close again before the latch ever lets go

priced the latch/lock a while back and it was 300 i think, just been too busy to mess with it

i did adjust once and that seemed to help some for a while but still the occasional mess up