300E Owners, what motor oil do you use?

Just wondering what folks are putting in their 124 cars. I am currently using Quaker State 15-W40.

Thanks.

[Fintail Fan]

If you do a search on this subject in this forum you will get a weekend's worth of reading, and LOT'S of different opinions. Personally, in my W124 '92 300TE 4Matic, (@138,000), I use 20w-50w Valvoline Dino oil in the summer, and in the winter I go a bit thinner with 10w-40w, and I change both the oil and filter every 3500 - 4000 miles. Hope this helps.


1962 MB 220SEb "Fintail" Sedan
1963 Vespa VNB4T Motor Scooter
1992 MB 300TE 4Matic Wagon
1995 Subaru Legacy AWD Wagon

[sunil190e-1.8]

here in england ,uk-i tend to use a good quality 10w/40 oil as we have a cooler climate .

had no problems with the cars and i change the oil/filter yearly without fail

[hs_300e]

Castrol GTX 10W40. Have been pleased with its results.

Quaker State is now owned by a conglomerate who buy their oil from other sources. They also own Slick/50 which should tell you something.

I've used Mobil 1 15W-50 in my 300E since the 1,200 mile mark. I've used it in Minnesota winters and Arizona summers.

Personally, I think any name brand oil will work just fine so long as it's not a 5W-30 or 10W-30. These so-called economy oils are pushed more for meeting CAFE averages than for long term reliability.

Rotella 15w 40 (1990 300e)

Hi,

Well, I think where you use the car does have some influence on what weight oil you might use.

Also, I found that since using a electric oil extraction pump, I can easily change the oil to the grade best suited for the upcoming two or three months.

For instance, the weather in Chicago was fairly warm until January. Certainly not sub-zero. I left the 10W-40 in until I saw the weather reports of upcoming sub-zero nights.

I changed the oil and filter to 5W-30 Castrol GTX to help with this cold snap that lasted about a month.

Once the snap was over, I went back to 10W-40 GTX and a new filter.

Probably too much for some owners to deal with, but I actually enjoy it now since the electric pump makes it easy.

Aside from weights, change hot and often. If you use a major brand and do this, you are fine.

Regards,

[pesuazo]

Castrol 20-50 High Mileage
or Valvoline 20-50 Max Life (both have certain additives that help seals on high mileage engines)

[GregS]

I used Chevron Delo 400 15w-40 the last change. This is a great diesel oil that is also highly recommended on this board for gas engines. After I changed, I found out that Amsoil sells a synthetic 10w-40, which is what I think I'll use from now on since it will cover me for cold winter temperatures too. Don't use a 30 weight. The previous owner of my car had Amsoil 10w-30 in there, and I thought I had serious valvetrain noise. After changing to the (MB recommended) 40 weight, all that clicking noise went away. The synthetic 10w-30 weight was just too thin I think.

GregS
'84 300D, 173k
'90 300CE, 163k

[Duke2.6]

Judge motor oil by API service classification, not brand name. For spark igntion engines the most current classification is SL; CI-4 for diesel engines. Though I use CI-4 oil in my pre-converter vintage cars, I do not use it in my modern cars with catalytic converters.

Vintage engines, especially those with carburetors can benefit from the richer additive package of CI-4 oils, but because the combustion byproducts of many of the addtives are not kind to catalytic converters CI-4 oil may shorten converter life, especially on engines with high oil consumption, and modern fuel injected engines do not need as rich an additive package because their more precise fuel metering leads to less fuel dilution in the oil unless the engine has excessive blowby, which probably means it needs major work.

Refer to your owner's manual for proper viscosity ranges based on the highest and lowest ambient temperature the engine will see on a cold start during the period the oil will be in the crankcase.

There can be wide price spreads between SL oils based on rebates and sales, so I buy whatever name brand SL oil is on sale at the time I need a case. Major brand CI-4 oils tend to be priced about the same, and for not particular rational reason, I prefer Chevron Delo.

To learn more about motor and gear oil classifications visit the American Petroleum Institute web site www.api.org

Duke

I've never heard of any detrimental effect regarding catalytic converters associated with ANY oil. If the engine is using so much oil that it is burned to a point of damaging a catalytic converter, that car is suffering many more problems than oil can cure or cause.

I use Chevron Delo 15W40 in everything from lawn mower to 300E. The only exception is Mobil One in my new C Class.

The 300E now has 244,500 miles and still requires no oil to be added between changes. The additional detergents in these universal grade oils are GREAT for gas engines, cat or not.

Have a great day,

I use Mobile 1 15W50 year round in my '88 300 TE with 297,000 miles (southern Connecticut). I change the filter only every 5000 miles (and top of oil), and both the oil and filter every 10,000 miles.

I tried a lighter weight Mobile 1 in the winter, but oil consumption went up.

Shell 20W50 during summer time (up to 35C)
Shell 10W 40 during winter time (down to -35C)
Drop oil and filter every 6,000KM
And I'm still in my breaking-in period at 248,000Km.
JackD