High mileage oils
 

My 190E has 115k miles on it... when I was getting oil the other day, I saw that several manufacturers make a high mileage oil for engines over 75k miles. It supposedly has additives to help protect the seals and such. Has anyone used any of these? Should they be used in MBs?

Thanks

Not protect the seals as much as swell them. These high mileage oils are designed for engines that smoke because of leaky valve stem seals. The oil swells them just a bit to delay the need for replacing the seals. Don't use these oils unless you really think you need them.

Just use a quality motor oil and change it often.

And I would not consider 75k miles to be anything near high mileage for a Mercedes.

I find we MB nuts have a different idea of what "high" means when talking mileage. Yesterday I took a friend of mine for a quick drive in the 190E to pick up some stuff. He was shocked when he saw the odo reading 260K, and nearly fainted when I told him that the original odo had been replaced at 122K, and so the real mileage was over 380,000km's.

We pulled onto the highway and I ripped the six through the gears. She pulled strong and snapped off shifts whipping the speedo to 120 km/h without hesitation. He was even more surprised when I explained that the car had few repairs in it's life and the driveline had never been opened.

On any MB diesel, M103, M104, M119 or M111, I think "high" miles is probably north of 400,000kms (250K-miles). 75,000 miles is barely broken in. If you think that is hyperbole, you're wrong. The M111 in the C230 is just a few miles short of 100K-miles, and it is startin to get really good city driving mileage, like an engine that is just getting seated in.

Those "high mileage" oils are marketed to Neon owners, as 75K-miles is stretching it for those things...:D

Fiero,

I just use plain old engine oil in my cars as long as it is a name brand and proper viscosity. I'm getting ready to do the 335,000 mile oil change on my 83 300TDT with original engine. I have logged several million miles on cars using plain old name brand oil. I refuse to pay rip off prices for hyped or synthetic oils. I have never had an engine failure because of oil.

Peter

High mile oils
 

what grade Mobil 1 would you use for a 100+k mile car? The 0/ seems way too thin. Some recommend 10/30.

I put the Mobil 1 20w50 in the 190e. It has 225k miles on it. Really seemed to make a difference. I think the 10w40 is fine, but anything less is just too thin, especially in S. California.

Haasman

Re: High mile oils
 

15 W 50. ;)

Yes, according to another post on this website the 0W-30, 5W-30 and 10W-30 Mobil 1 oils are NOT true synthetics in that they start with dino oil as the base oil and MB does NOT approve these viscosities of Mobil 1. You should also know that MB does not approve the 15W-50 Mobil 1 either although it is a true synthetic but I assume these are fuel mileage issues. Who would have thought that non-synthetic anything could be marketed as synthetic? Wacky.

No, Mercedes DOES approve Mobil 1 15W-50. See this page:

http://www.whnet.com/4x4/oil.html

Doesn't the later list supplant the earlier one? The approved oil list that came with my wife's 2004 SLK32 did not include the earlier approved oils. Also, the Mobil 1 packaging lists MB's approval on the 0W-40 but not on the 15W-50.

No, the later lists is "added" to the earlier list. "Mercedes-Benz recommends the use of MB approved engine oils listed in the Mercedes-Benz oil specification sheet 229.1 or 229.3...." This is specifically for cars with FSS (1998 & later), but the 229.1 and 229.3 list is also recommended for older engines.

As far as the 2004 model, perhaps there's been a change that has not been published yet, but I haven't seen it.

Thanks for the info. I had always used 20W-50 dino oil year round here in NE Florida (15W-40 in winter in diesels) until being forced to use synthetic for the newer FSS cars. I will switch to 15W-50 Mobil 1 now for my self-serviced vehicles and for the extra changes I do on the in-warranty SLK (I can't see changing oil only every 11K-12K miles whether it is synthetic or not).