You'd be better off looking for a similar car rear ended on copart and just swapping the engine...

This is true. Are there not sites in USA where you can search for engines in your area or in whole country? I seem to recall 380SL owners needing to do that when timing chains destroyed their engines.!

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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5

https://www.car-part.com/


anything from gas tanks for a w126 to engines for a GL350 (I looked it up and the few that are available are ~10k)

Problem is that these engines, like many others, are a $6k proposition just for an engine or a refurbished long block, then all the labor to pull and install, check out, debug, and probably for these new fancy vehicles, fully re-code all the subsystems. Sounds like a mess.

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Current Diesels:
1981 240D (73K)
1982 300CD (169k)
1985 190D (169k)
1991 350SD (116k)
1991 350SD (206k)
1991 300D (228k)
2008 ML320 CDI (199k)
1996 Dodge Ram CTD (442k)
1996 Dodge Ram CTD (267k)

Past Diesels:
1983 300D (228K), 1985 300D (233K), 1993 300D 2.5T (338k), 1993 300SD (291k)

Right. The first place found a company that sells reman engines for the 350 for ~$10k and then labor was quoted at $2,800 + an additional potential $500 in misc. parts + tax would be just under $15k. My concern is that they would do all of that and then realize that it needs some other things to actually get it running and the cost would just continue to skyrocket after that. I am heading towards selling it as-is and cutting my losses as I would rather not spend the money just to continue driving a car I can't trust.

I do not know if you do any mechanical work. I tend to do my own.

I would at least try to establish what the problem is. Broken camshaft or whatever. Some situations will be nasty and some not so much. It just depends. I would at least pull the valve pan or pans. I kind of doubt that a main or rod bearing has locked the engine up at that millage.

Also you might try asking Mercedes what is the typical failure issue with these engines. At low overall millage. They have to know as there are other members reporting knowledge of the issue.

Timing chain issue? At the potential dollars otherwise is concerning. Two reports that engine is locked up are not really that informative. Sometimes a broken cam is really bad and other times not that much.

Personally I would not write that engine off until I knew a lot more.

You are right Barry. I already suggested that a couple of times, but seems no action on that front

I suspect this car would have to go to dealer anyway after an engine swap to recode/set electronic systems.

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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5

Could be they obstruct oil passages. Some broken cam problems though that have been mentioned on these engines are also interesting. When you hear of a lot of product failures. Usually there is a common denominator.

I stopped using aftermarket oil filters for example on our newer cars. When the Toyota dealer told us they do not care what oil we use in it. They are experiencing aftermarket oil filters coming apart and blocking oil passages. If they find this the warranty on the engine is void. So just buy our branded oil filters wherever you want to.

After some thought I took the average aftermarket oil filter for my old jetta diesel and compared it to the factory one. Both are cartridge insert types.

There has to be a problem out there as the factory original type oil filter is also horizontally reinforced substantially. They have not moved in that direction for their health. It is not a sales gimmick either. It requires very specific equipment to make the filter portion of the filter. On the original branded oil filters.

In volkswagons case they did not have filter breakup as an issue I believe. I think as a filter obstructs a little it gets pulled in somewhat from the suction or pressure of the oil pump. This may make it go into bypass mode earlier. With sealed oil filters the user would not have a clue this is happening unless they cut it open.

Being kind of cheap still. I just locate original manufactures branded oil filters at the best price. Usually four or so at a time. I still realise that in almost all cases they are still manufactured in the orient. Just some are much better structurally filter element wise than the others. To lose an engine over an oil filter would really piss me off.