First of all there are some great responses here but tryan and psfred are offering WISDOM. As they say, just use good oil, change it often and forget about FSS. I still take advantage of the free oil changes and service during the warranty period, with my own changes in between.

Secondly, as indicated by many here, I believe that the FSS works from what we call in the software business, a "lookup table." There are several conditions related to mileage and time. If the car goes past a certain mileage, or time it indicates miles left to service. If it is a little more sophisticated, it monitors short hops versus longer trips and factors this in. On some cars there is a resistivity sensor, but that doesn't do very much. If the oil is so bad that the resistivity sensor indicates that its time, you've already entered into a situation that is not healthy for your engine.

Lastly, MB was NOT forced by the law suit to address the problem. I remember posts here by professional techs two years ago indicating that MB was discovering sludge problems in engines driven to FSS max intervals. It was at that same time that MB started providing synthetic for their warranty period oil changes.

I first bought my C in October 2000. I was told that if I wanted to use Mobil One that I could bring it to them at service time and they would use it. Within a month, my tech told me that the policy was changed and explained the sludging experience. He said they were now providing Mobil One no charge.

It is very politically correct to blame the big, evil corporations for all your problems, and I have gotten pretty amped up at MBUSA several times myself. But in this case you're just joining into politically correct mob behavior toward the big, evil corporations. Without these large companies, the rest of us would not have jobs, even the self employed would probably be hoeing their garden to survive.

Have a great day,

Larry, you are a fountain of knowledge and a geyser of opinions. :p Maybe sometimes a little corporate greed wins out over customer satisfaction - even safety? Correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't that happened before?? I seem to remember something about Ford gas tanks, GM pickup trucks, Firestone tires....

I'm very glad that MBUSA had things figured out by the time you got your 2000 C-Klasse, but those with 1998/99 vehicles (like myself) were TOLD to rely on FSS by the sales and service staff. Those owners launched the lawsuit and those owners contributed to MB's huge slide in the recent JD Power used-vehicle owner survey.

MBUSA isn't the victim of anything. I'll leave it to someone who's been downsized, outsourced, offshored or outplaced to debate your opinions about how benign and cuddly any of the various megacorps are.

__________________
Dean Albrecht
"Lead, follow, or better yet, get out of the way!"E500 owners motto

ILUVMILS is correct. I am told (but can't prove it) that the Temic sensor is used in MB and BMW. If you would like more info on this "Oil Quality,Level and Temperature Sensor" go to www.temic.com . At least the web site was there about 60 days ago. You should be able to print a nice picture of the sensor. Of course this is a German company. Have a nice day.

__________________
Paul 1987 300 SDL; 2000 ML; '69 MGB; '68 VW Fastback

When you go to the Temic web site,click on Temic,Products,Sensor systems, and finally the QLT Sensor. You can print a data sheet. Also, don't forget to click on English in the beginning.

__________________
Paul 1987 300 SDL; 2000 ML; '69 MGB; '68 VW Fastback

need2speed said;


"I'll leave it to someone who's been downsized, outsourced, offshored or outplaced to debate your opinions about how benign and cuddly any of the various megacorps are."


You are hearing from someone who is a "victim" of "down sizing, and outsourcing." The company I work for gave us all a 10% paycut one year ago, and last Thursday I got another 14% paycut. In addition to that, I had to serve "position elimination" papers to people that I've known and loved for fourteen years and then walk them to the door. This happened to 28% of our employees about six weeks ago! In additon to that, we may be completely out of business in six months.

SO PLEASE DON'T IMPLY THAT I DON'T KNOW ABOUT DOWNSIZING!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you think that companies WANT to lay people off? When they are doing that, it means that they are having trouble and not making enough money to pay everyone. Do you think that is a situation that they WANT? If you believe that companies WANT to lose money and send people home, you are not thinking with your brain!

I'm sorry to take such a stance, but I'm having trouble feeling sorry for you or anyone who is naive enough to change your oil on a 10,000 mile or greater basis. I don't care if it's Mobil One, or oil with Kryptonite, it gets dirty, sludgy and must be changed. I find it difficult to understand why someone would buy a car costing $30,000, or in many cases much more, and then scrimp over a few dollars worth of oil and a filter.

I have been ridiculed here many times about my lecturing about frequent and hot oil changes. People can make fun of me all they want, but I'm not the one with a sludgy engine.

Yes, GM, Ford and others have made engineering blunders. All companies that develop and build products do so. No one is perfect. It doesn't help when NBC stages a test of the GM pickup gas tanks with a detonating device to make it blow up for their cameras. Was this dirty on the part of GM? Don't get me wrong, GM is my least favorite company, both for their policies and their products, but this shows you how quick the news media is to sensationalize or even fabricate a story.

So, if you would like to experience yourself what it's like to be in a downsized company, just come on down and you can go down with the ship like the rest of us here.

NOW, please do not ever again acuse me of not knowing what it's like to suffer downsizing or outsourcing. Also, at the same time, you might try to think things through for yourself instead of blaming the big, bad, evil corporations for your own problems.

Merry Christmas,

My grandad always said that the first person to name-call has lost the argument....

__________________
Dean Albrecht
"Lead, follow, or better yet, get out of the way!"E500 owners motto

That's the only response you can come up with?

I've thoroughly re-read my post and cannot find where I called anyone a name.

BTW, your Grand Father is a wise man.

Also, the point of my timelining October of 2000 being the point at which MB provided syn oil, was that they recognized the problem and began working on the solution before the slicko's, I mean lawyers made them do it as a result of any law suit.

Merry Christmas,