THanks for the info. I don't drive the car with the Engine flush, just leave it started for the time mentioned on the bottle. Similar to what you do. The bottle actually says, do not drive the car and simply let it idle.

Hey thanks for that repsonse. That was one of the better repsonses and very detail filled. What you said makes alot of sense, and it makes me wonder even furthur what really is the benefit of using this product.

I'll also be talking to my friend, who uses an engine flush product for every oil change on his 2003 Honda Accord(since brand new) and does his oil changes every 4500 kms. He maintains its the reason his oil comes out looking new, but i wonder if he's damaging his car by thinning his oil. He thinks his car's engine will last forever as sludge and junk will never deposist in his engine......

If you use an engine flush of any discription just put a slightly heavier oil on fill-up....I use a flush once every 2 years then replace oil with Castrol 25w-60w

This works fine for me....purrs like a kitten

Hmmm,

Its a shame people don't put VIN numbers in their posts. Would be nice to google boards like this and see all the not so nice things that have been done to the car you might be interested in buying.

As cumbersome as the FAA makes aircraft service its really nice to be able to read the log book entries and see what the previous owners have done to it over the years.

Speaking of Aircraft. After a Major Overhaul most aircraft engines are run on Mineral oil rather than the standard oil to break in the engine. Reminds me of some of this engine flush stuff.

I have a ticking lifter on my 99 C280. All the lifters was replaced about 10 000km ago. Before the lifters were replaced, it had a constant ticking. After the lifters were replaced, the lifter ticking is intermittent. Usually on a cold start (but not always - about 50% of the times), I'll have the ticking for about 10-20 minutes before it goes away. Sometimes the ticking will come back even if the engin is still warm, for example after I have driven for 200 km and stop - when I start up after 5 minutes it will tick for a few minutes before silencing.

I dont know why it still ticks even when all the lifters where changed. The only thing I can think of is that one of the lifters is not getting oil due to partially blocked oil galleries, etc.

Is it advised to do an engin flush, or put a detergent in the oil, to try and open up oil galleries. Or what should I do?

I afraid of causing more problems if I flush, such as all the varnish/deposits coming loose and block up the whole engin.

The car has been running on Magnatec for whole of its life (160 000km). Apart from the last service before the lifters was changed when it had Mobil 1 in. I think the previous owner tried to use a synthetic to see if it wouldn't solve the problem before changing the lifters. I bought the car on 150 000, with noisy lifter, but under the agreement that he will change the lifters.

What is the possibility that the ticking noise is something else (not a lifter), keeping in mind that it is intermittent and usually is only noisy in the first 10-20 minutes after a start.

Thanks for helping. I really need to solve this, and have asked for advise in a number of forums over the last few months (this one included), without real pratical advise.

Personally I would have the engine partially dissasembled and have it cleaned.... If there is something blocking it now there are chances that you could make it worse by putting in a cleaning agent that might dislodge more of the crud and stop the oil flow all together.... Maybee you could go in half with the person since the lifters did not fix the problem afterall......

Its not the easy way out and its more expensive but it is the way to make sure that everything in there is ok..... As well you might want to pose this question to a couple of good independant mechanics in your area and see what answers you get from them......

I collect antique clocks and its common practice for sleazy Antique dealers to blast the back of the clockworks with wd40.... It makes it run in the short term but eventually the wd40 gums up again and provides little lubrication to the clock and causes more wear in the process..... You would essentially be doing the same thing to your engine..... A short term fix that might make the same symptoms return and do more harm in the long run......

My car use to run like crap before i did my oil flushes. Felt like it was struggling...I did it for 2 oil changes and my car ran great. I've seen the oil, and it comes out very thin and filled with junk and dark dark black...I personally don't fear it would cause gunk to stay inside you're engine, i think it'll all flush out after a couple oil changes with flushes, but my only worry is what that stuff is made out of....

IF I were you, i'd try the product to see if it improves you're problem. They sell millions of this product nationwide, so i doubt it wrecks engines. I'd try this $5-10 dollar luck before spending big money on ripping you're engine apart..which you might have to do in the end anyways.

Have you tried auto-rx? I have used it on 3 cars '95 C280 135K miles, '96 Maxima 127K miles, and a '00 Passat 105k miles. When looking at the cams on my C280 after treatment, all signs of varnish are gone. The C280 filter looked as if the varnish had been transfered to the filter like the testimonial / pics on the auto-rx site of the MB S500 after the cleaning phase. The Maxima filter (which is an extremely small filter) had noticeable thick dark sludge coating the filter after the cleaning phase. I'm still on the rinse phase and will cut the filter open when I'm done with the cleaning phase to see if there is any additional sludge. I didn't notice any sludge on the VW filters and its color looked similar to the C280 but a bit darker after the cleaning phase. I used a roto-zip tool with a metal circular blade to cut the Maxima and VW metal shells from the filters. Although my C280 had no noticeable ticking sound, I do believe the engine runs quieter. It seems that my normal idle is up slightly on the VW (760 ish to 780 ish). And on my Maxima, my overall mpg appears to have increased by almost 1 mpg to about 24.5.

Thanks for the sitez!

i found another good one... http://pages.prodigy.net/jforgione/MB_S500.html

Your profile indicates you have done over $15K worth of repairs to your 94 C220. Care to fill us in on the engine related repairs you have had to do? Might be somewhat enligtening for someone considering putting this stuff into their engine for comparison purposes.