I'm seeking information from anyone who owns or has knowledge of the Cherokee with the MBZ diesel engine. We're thinking of picking up a 3rd car and that one piqued my interest. Price level is attractive, buy I'm also a firm believer in "you get what you pay for". I think that's why I love my E300D so much! I appreciate your feedback.

I could be dead wrong but I thought they had Perkins engines. But maybe that was an earlier iteration. Anyhow, the Perkins is generally a tough little devil if somewhat low on power. M-B makes many different Diesels so we'd need to know the model to provide reasonable input.

Dan

The 3.0-liter turbo-diesel in the Grand Cherokee CRD (for Common-Rail Diesel) is essentially the same engine found in such Mercedes-Benz products as the ML320 SUV and E320 sedan, apart from some extremely minor calibration tweaks. From Car and Driver.

It is in fact the Mercedes OM642 under the hood. I own one in an E-class sedan. While I generally like it, I would not recommend to anyone with either budget constraints or lacking extensive DIY capability. A couple of common problems with the engine are the throttle motor under the engine failing and the oil cooler seals leaking. Each is a four digit repair at dealer prices. Both are possible DIY, but one needs time and patience to work on this engine.

I do like driving it. In the E-class it delivers about 35MPG highway, 0-60 acceleration in the mid 6 second range, and is smooth and quiet. Just that it is expensive when it breaks.

I picked one up last summer. It has the 642 engine and the NAG1/W5A580 transmission which was DC's name for the 722.6.

Common problems:

Swirl motor. (DTC P2015) The motor that moves the intake port flaps to change intake runner lengths. The PCV vent seal leaks oil where it goes into the intake right before the turbo. The oil drips right down on the motor and causes it to fail. Very expensive dealer repair as most of the time they charge you for a new intake manifold since it is extremely difficult to not break the linkage when replacing the motor. I believe the FSM requires pulling the motor to do this repair. The swirl valve system is there primarily for emissions and can be bypassed by inserting a certain value resistor in the plug to the motor. The Green Diesel Engineering tune also disables the swirl motor as well as its proving programming in the computer. GDE tune also disables the EGR and provides better performance and MPG.

Leaky intake seals. As mentioned previously, the seal between the PCV pipe and the intake pipe leaks. The original seal is orange and the updated one is black. The seal unfortunately is unavailable on its own so you must buy the whole intake tube, about $80. Alternative is to rig up an "elephant hose" to vent PCV gas to a catch can or to under the car. This prevents leak problems and also keeps oil from clogging up your intercooler and intake.

Crankshaft position sensor. MB put out a TSB on this issue for early 2007 vehicles. A bad run of crank position sensors functioned intermittently. It would cause the vehicle to stall and/or not start. Since the computer needs to know crank angle to time the injections it won't run without it.

The GDE tune is highly recommended as it takes care of a number of issues as well as disabling the EGR...we all know what that does mixed with blowby gasses. I don't have it yet but many on the Jeep forums do and everyone loves it.

I get 23-24mpg on the highway. GDE gains you about 2-3 more MPG by reducing pre and post injection events mainly there to quiet combustion noise. If you don't care about your diesel sounding like a diesel, go for the tune.

Towing with this rig is amazing; it's rated to 7200lbs. I pulled a 3500lb travel trailer this summer and it didn't break a sweat. Towing MPG is almost better than gasser MPG when they aren't towing!

Mine is currently in the shop for transmission or transfer case work...before I bought it both the transmission and transfer case were replaced by the PO by his warranty. PO was out of town and repair was taking too long so he just traded it in for a new GC. 6000 miles later I'm getting intermittent grinding and loss of power. Sounds like it's coming from the t-case. 12 month, 12k mile parts and service warranty should be taking care of it.

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Dale

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g1...MG_2277sig.jpg

1990 300D 2.5 Turbo -155k
2000 E430 - 103k
2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee Ecodiesel 4x4 - 11k
2014 VW Passat TDI SE - 7k Bro's Diesel
2006 E320 CDI - 128k Pop's Benz

Pre-glow - A moment of silence in honor of Rudolph Diesel

I am also quite interested in getting one, particularly the MY08 ( a bit of comfort in not having the first year with the MB engine). However the prices are a bit crazy here. There are quite a few for sale but asking $25-35K; people must be paying that! A gasser of the same year is around $10K, so you can buy a lot of gas for the difference. For this kind of price I would get a good used M-Class diesel, and it would be 100% MB.

2.5Turbo: perhaps you can correct me, but I think apart from the engine/trans combination, the rest of it is still a Jeep. What is the price point for them in WA? Perhaps I will find one to import north.

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'98 E300 DT
'87 190D 2.5 turbo RIP
'92 S500 Sold
'03 3.2TL-S A-Spec

I looked into these. Transmission issues ran the gamut...

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http://superturbodiesel.com/images/sig.04.10.jpg
1995 E420 Schwarz
1995 E300 Weiss
#1987 300D Sturmmachine
#1991 300D Nearly Perfect
#1994 E320 Cabriolet
#1995 E320 Touring
#1985 300D Sedan
OBK #42

I paid a tad over $20k for mine which had 52k at the time and is a limited with most options. Nav, back seat DVD, quadra-drive II (ELSD diffs with e-lockers and clutched center diff). I looked into the ML, and there were a number of them at a similar price, but the Jeep is so much better off road. Solid rear axle and low range transfer case are great to have if you're doing more than just dirt roads and a little snow. To get comparable off road abilities, you're talking GL and G land which are both $$$. If you don't plan on many off road adventures, go with the ML; I'm sure the quality of the rest of the vehicle is going to be better. A good amount of typical domestic car interior cheapness going on, even in a GC Limited which cost $45k new.

winmutt: They used two completely different transmissions in these depending on the engine. The V8's got the 545RFE while the V6's (3.6 gasser and 3.0 CDI) got the W5A580/722.6. There are MB part numbers on my transmission parts.

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Dale

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g1...MG_2277sig.jpg

1990 300D 2.5 Turbo -155k
2000 E430 - 103k
2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee Ecodiesel 4x4 - 11k
2014 VW Passat TDI SE - 7k Bro's Diesel
2006 E320 CDI - 128k Pop's Benz

Pre-glow - A moment of silence in honor of Rudolph Diesel