But you're missing the point. The really long lived MB engines of the past never saw a drop of synthetic oil. The point is the engines have changed. I believe MB boasted to Wall Street that they had cut nearly half of the production cost of the 112 engine family versus the prior engines. Whether they did this intentional to shorten engine life (planned obsolescence) or simply missed a calculation and screwed up is not as important as the fact (obvious to me) that it happened. Bottom end engine problems are not a laughing matter in this day and age. 104 motors and 119 motors don't have them short of really serious abuse.