Forgive this oil thread, could old oil be OK???

[shailey]

Mike,

I have a 2002 E320 that has had perfect FSS services during it's 57,000 mile life. I also have lots of tappet noise upon startup that's going to cost several thousand dollars to repair. Change your oil frequently. I don't care what the owner's manual and the oil analysis results say, change the oil. My Volvo just passed 260,000 miles, has had oil changes every 5,000 miles (per Volvo's recommended service interval), and has been trouble free. I'm now using the 5,000 mile interval for the Benz.

Best of luck,

Steve

[Nate]

I'll be running synthetic in both of my cars next summer, but the DD's getting some soon, in basic auto next week.


I'll change the oil every 6k miles or so, but I'll do the Ac Delco filter every 3 k... Just cause, I'm anal about that.

Moms car can fit a PF52 in it, without any issues... about 2X the filter. I'll just change the oil and filter every 5k miles...


10k is running on the edge for a synthetic, but it's past the limit for a filter imho. You loose about a quart of oil when you change the filter only (it goes back down into the pan, it wont drain alot out except the filter)

I'd at LEAST change the filter every 5k, and dont use no fram crap on it. Use ANY better brand then fram, do NOT use fram

good luck with your car, is a 94 mercedes considered a beater yet? I'd only run oil that long on a cheaper car, but W/E

~Nate

[rchase]

Originally Posted by shailey

Mike,

I have a 2002 E320 that has had perfect FSS services during it's 57,000 mile life. I also have lots of tappet noise upon startup that's going to cost several thousand dollars to repair. Change your oil frequently. I don't care what the owner's manual and the oil analysis results say, change the oil. My Volvo just passed 260,000 miles, has had oil changes every 5,000 miles (per Volvo's recommended service interval), and has been trouble free. I'm now using the 5,000 mile interval for the Benz.

Best of luck,

Steve

Uuugh.... Here we go with the unfounded claims.... Gotta love oil threads....

[uberwgn]

Originally Posted by rchase

Uuugh.... Here we go with the unfounded claims....

X2.


Our '02 car had all services performed against the FSS system using only oil that meets the factory's spec. The engine is so quiet I can barely hear it run. Fuel economy is shocking for a car of this weight. I can't see any room for improvement and have several UOAs for validation.

[mpolli]

It seems oil threads will never die... For the record I learned quite a bit from this exercise and from researching to understand the results of the test. And to some extent it was true that knowing the ppm of a bunch of things does not necessarily tell you much without a lot more information. But I learned a lot of things about oil that I didn't know. And in the end I think the truth was the oil was not nearly as "still good" as I thought. The TBN was getting low, it had a good amount of fuel in it since I do lots of short trips. It was still good but not for too much longer. As far as the previous example, it is kind of like saying "I brush my teeth 3 times a day and I have bad teeth so you should brush your teeth 6 times a day". Maybe, maybe not. I feel confident I can go 10K miles with this oil in this engine. But it might not be great idea in every engine.

Mike

[manny]

Originally Posted by mpolli

The manual says it has FSS however it just counts to 10,000 miles, so it is really not very "flexible".
Mike

Wrong!
It starts at 10 k miles & will add or subtract, based on many variables ( temperature, distance driven between start-ups, etc ).
Under " ideal " conditions, it can add as much as 1 k miles between oilchanges.

[mpolli]

In my experience it did not move 1 mile. 10,000 on the nose.

Mike

[Hatterasguy]

Notice MB dumped FSS. Thats one of those things you are betting off ignoring.