About 18 months ago I purchased my 1993SD with only 50K miles. It now has 67K, but oil consumption is about 1 qt every 400 miles. I have read, now, that this engine has "design" or "manufacturing" problems. Anyone have any advice?

We have seen many problems with head design, bent rods, and blown head gaskets.

One time I saw a turbo that blew the front seal out, when this happened, the engine smoked alot and oil consumption was high.

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Benzmac:
Donnie Drummonds
1991 GMC Syclone
ASE CERTIFIED MASTER AUTO TECHNICIAN
SERVICE MANAGER FOR 14 BAY FACILITY
MERCEDES SPECIALIST 8 YRS
PARTNER IN MERCEDESSHOP.COM

Oil consumption on these engines seem to come from piston/cylinder clearance & or turbo seal failure. Have the turbo tested first!

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MERCEDES BENZ MASTER GUILD TECHNICIAN (6 TIMES)
ASE MASTER TECHNICIAN
27 YEARS DEALER M.B. Shopforeman
190E 2.3 ITS RACECAR
1986 190E 16V

David,

A good independent shop is MercedesHaus Schweikart near downtown Dallas. 214 744 0093.

Good luck,

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Larry Bible
'84 Euro 240D, 523K miles
'88 300E 5 Speed
'81 300D Daughter's Car
Over 800,000 miles in
Mercedes automobiles

In addition to looking for areas that oil is leaking inside the engine, once you have confirmed that no oil is leaking outside the engine (while at rest and while running) you might consider switching to an oil with a higher flash point. generally spaeking an oil with a higher viscosity will have a higher flashpoint and a higher burn point and therefore will not burn as easily


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Jason Priest
1986 420SEL

Any oil that gets into the combustion chamber(CC) will burn along with the fuel no what the viscosity. Higher viscosity lubricating oil will resist getting into the CC better than a lower viscosity oil. But even if any lubricating oil that got into the CC didn't burn, it would just go out the tail pipe and the same amount would be consumed.