Hi..
I have a 300D 1983. I do mainly city driving, and one trip up to SF from LA..
How often should I have my oil changed?..and how important is it.
Thanks
LindaJ

I do mine every 3,000 miles - religiously.

If I am using a really good synthetic I go 5,000 miles. Some say you can go longer but I like to be safe.


Use the search since this topic was covered about 1 million times. It is definitely in the "Most Asked Questions" category.

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Audi TT

3.000 miles or four months, whichever occurs first.

I change every 3000 on Rotella. You REALLY should do a search on oil changes. You could probably read old posts for six hours....

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'87 300D 183K
'06 E320 CDI 10K

Lindajane,

It depends opn 2 things : type of driving and type of oil.

Since you drive mostly city driving, you should probably change every 2500 miles with dino oil and 5000 miles with synthetic oil.

Me, I go 10,000 miles using Mobil 1 or Castrol Syntec. But I do enough trips that the engine gets hot almost every the time I use it.

P E H

My 300SEL 6.3, 560SEC, E320T - dino oil -- every 2,000-3,000 miles

My E500 - Mobil 1 -- every 5,000 miles

Always change both oil and filter together.

Cheers,
Gerry

Since I got my 300CD oil changed twice in 1500 mile, I have set my computer to remind me every 3months, and am expecting to change to amsoil.

JOe

topic to argue about.
OIL, OIL, OIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another OIL thread.

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Mobil 1 "Red cap" 15-50, when first changing to synthetic, change at or before 5k. If racking up a lot of miles, perform an oil analysis (they are cheap) and extend to 10K based on analysis.

Much longer than that. LOL
Weeks, with all the hijacks.

Fellow Benz fans, what you will read isn't meant to anger, just inform. Miles, in a city driver, doesn't mean anything, period. Miles are only important to "normal drivers" and city driving isn't normal. I would also like to editorilize at this point but will refrain. All I can say, I feel for you.
What do I mean? All right, compare your Benz diesel to a piece of farm machinery, like a John Deere tractor. You travel in lets say, gear twenty, at a speed of 20 miles per hour. In another job you opperate in gear 5, at 3 miles per hour. Both jobs take 50 hours. See the difference in mile travelled? Change the oil at the end of 50 hours. Get the meaningness of miles. It's the amount of time that diesel opperates.
Now point two. A diesel opperating at idle in traffic is not good, to say it lightly. They opperate best at high RPMs. A city diesel might be changed sooner than a road deisel. My theory on oil changes, every 50 hours which averages close to 2000 miles in a road deisel. That might be 500 miles in a city driver. The best deisel trucks are the ones that travel at high RPMs, the worst, city trucks.
What should Benz have installed to help you out? A clock that tells you the hours. Can you consider the hours on Benz models from a worthless traffic area? Compare that to great road areas. One has high miles, one low miles. The high mile Benz isn't looking too bad now, right? Now your wondering, right?
Ever wonder why your city driver has black oil even with low miles? Now you know.

Dan,

You raise an interesting point. Now what we need to find out is how often the oil is changed in diesel MB taxis that see VERY heavy stop-and-go traffic and excessive idling periods - common in Europe and SE Asia.

What we need is some sort of crazy computer that can monitor driving time + driving miles correlate to known wear data and generate a meaningful wear number based on an individual engine's propensity for wear at idle vs. various drive RPMs, and tell you exactly when to change your oil and what brand/weight to use.

Of course, that computer would cost as much as the car.

I DO know that I'm not changing my city car's oil ever 500 miles. However, I understand that city driving constitutes 'severe conditions'. I'm on my first tank of synthetic, and I'll be taking an oil sample at 3000 to see how things are doing. Oil sampling is really the only way to tell how your oil is doing. People who change their oil every 3000 on the dot are either wasting their time, or waiting too long, depending on their oil. I recommend everyone get an oil sample at some point, just to get a baseline for their engine. I believe some 617s can go 6-8k before needing a change, and some might need a change at 2.5k. The only way to tell is with an oil sample to get real data. MB's recommendation means very little 22 years and 250,000 miles later.

peace,
sam

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"That f***in' biodiesel is makin' me hungry."

1982 300TD Astral Silver w/ 250k (BIO BNZ)
2001 Aprilia SR50 Corsa Red w/ 5.5k (>100 MPG)

Umm, it's not crazy, and it's been available for some time.

M-B's FSS!

http://www.4x4abc.com/ML320/ML_FSS.html

GM's Oil-Life

http://www.gm.com/automotive/vehicl...ife_system.html

That said, you will still be told to change your oil every 3 months/3,000 miles by those not trusting the technology...

Best Regards,
Jim

Hey, thanks for those links! I knew some newer cars had oil life sensors, but I thought that amounted to a timer that counted down until it x,000 miles had elapsed, not an adaptive sensor that took so much data...

But I was right, that system probably costs more than my 300TD.

And the best part is, I got the information by using this crazy box with a TV on it that lets you read books that are in far away places by showing them on the TV. Thats crazy!

peace,
sam

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"That f***in' biodiesel is makin' me hungry."

1982 300TD Astral Silver w/ 250k (BIO BNZ)
2001 Aprilia SR50 Corsa Red w/ 5.5k (>100 MPG)