Have you considered an hour meter just to have another control variable in your car's maintenance? Will this particular device work on MB diesels?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360194620894&viewitem=

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Ben
1987 190d 2.5Turbo

I had put one on my furnace, but this is an interesting thought.

Maybe I can get a Hobbs meter and put it in.

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Michael LaFleur

'05 E320 CDI - 86,000 miles
'86 300SDL - 360,000 miles
'85 300SD - 150,000 miles (sold)
'89 190D - 120,000 miles (sold)
'85 300SD - 317,000 miles (sold)
'98 ML320 - 270,000 miles (sold)
'75 300D - 170,000 miles (sold)
'83 Harley Davidson FLTC (Broken again) :-(
'61 Plymouth Valiant - 60k mikes
2004 Papillon (Oliver)
2005 Tzitzu (Griffon)
2009 Welsh Corgi (Buba)

It would be easy enough to connect an engine hour meter to a power supply from the ignition switch. I'm not sure why it would be useful since most maintenance is based on miles and/or time.

i suppose it would be helpful if the car tends to sit idling for a long time and you wanted to measure 'engine wear' time.

suppose it idles at 1000rpm for 3 hours. wouldn't that be the same as driving the car for 1 hour at 3000rpm?

if you traveled at 65 mph for that 1 hour, you would have travelled 65 miles.

therefore, 3 hours sitting in traffic = 65 miles in "engine wear" even though the odometer barely moved (you are stuck in traffic).

I the short run, i guess it is irrelevant but if you sit in traffic a lot, it could add up.

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Ben
1987 190d 2.5Turbo

No.

The exhaust temperatures and thus how completely the fuel is combusted is different at different RPMs. More carbon buildup takes place at idle than when the exhaust is hotter.


I was thinking the same thing about your hour meter, it might be useful to a future purchaser to identify excessive idling and drop the price they may give you. Not to mention the price drop because its a modification.

If you idle your vehicle too much, you probably already know so and should alter your service intervals accordingly- why would you want a means by which to prove it to someone else?

EDIT: Just to be clear, you could leave it idling for DAYS and the exhaust gases would NEVER reach the temp they reach driving it a sustained 5-10 mins under load at 3000 rpm.

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'84 300D
'97 Jeep XJ lots of mods
'01 Subaru Forester

good point. thanks for clearing it up. i never considered the temperature issue at all. this forum rocks!

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Ben
1987 190d 2.5Turbo

Isn't time precisely what an hour meter measures?

I understand (all) airplane engines use hours to schedule their maintenance.

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83 SD

84 CD

I wasn't clear, I meant "calendar" time (i.e., 6 months).

It's a wonder that MB doesn't have this type of gadget on them, all things considered. I'm wondering if they were ever installed on MBs - way back maybe?

My GPS has an hour meter. I find it surprising how long the engine is actually running compared to how for the car actually travels.

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1983 300SD

In the large engine business, service tasks are scheduled by running hours, indpendent of load. There is a trend, however, towards "Condition Based Maintenance" which is a fancy way of saying "If it isn't about to break or wear out, don't fix it."

Of course the tricky part is determining whether it's about to break or wear out!

Rgds,
Chris W.

Cars are moving that way too now. Factory manuals are starting to say "change the oil when the light comes on" instead of "Change the oil every ___ miles or ___ months." I'm not a fan, but it's the way the trend is going even in small engines as well.

For my vote, I'm nowhere close to concerned enough about it to want another instrument. I let mine idle plenty because carbon is easier to ignore than a starter or battery. My view is "no matter how many million times the starter works, it DOES have a finite number of cranks in it, so why waste them" if it's only going to sit ten or fifteen minutes.

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~Michael S.~
Past cars:

1986 300SDL
1987 300SDL
1982 240D
1982 300SD


Current:

1987 300SDL

I've never considered putting one in my own vehicle, since scheduling maintenance by mileage or calendar time seems adequate to me.

Some military trucks have hour meters in addition to odometers, and they idle A LOT. I've seen some where the mileage divided by the hours works out to an average speed of about 3 mph.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 400,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 22,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.

I work on utility equipment. They put one on the engine and one on the pto. Its just another way of knowing the conditions that the actual piece of equipment is being operated .

I find some mid 90's trucks with 20,000 miles on them then look at the hour meter and the brand new low mileage truck suddenly becomes a POS . It has Idled 8 hrs a day for the past 15 years !!

Some fleets go by hours others by odometer or months depends on the manager / owner .

All new vehicles have an internal Life hour meter I guess you could call it. Dealers can bring it up on their scanners.

Unless you have major problems with your odometer I wouldnt worry about it.

And we all know these mercedes have the most accurate odometers.

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Experience : what you receive 3 seconds after you really needed it !!



86 300SDL 387,000? Motor committed suicide
81 300SD 214,000 "new" 132,000 motor
83 300SD 212,000 parts car
83 300SD 147,000

91 F700 5.9 cummins 5spd eaton 298,000
66 AMC rambler American 2dr auto 108,000
95 Chevy 3/4 ton auto 160,000
03 Toyota 4runner 180,000 wifes