Yeah they're honestly bad. Frankly there's almost no diesel vehicle that I would buy over something with a big gas engine unless I absolutely needed a pickup truck to tow 15k+ lbs routinely. But I would never buy a car or suv with a diesel these days. I was first offered a 3.0 V6 duramax Escalade before buying my 6.2 one but I declined on it because I had a gut feeling it was going to be a piece of junk and it's designed terribly when you look at it. Now gm is discontinuing it and I'm for it.
Seized Engine UOA - Proving shop damaged my engine
- Thread starter RStar40
- Start date
My Son managed a small fleet of these. The reliability was low-and the repair costs ultra high. They got rid of them in favor of gas version.
Wouldn't surprise me if they fired it up after the job without oil by accident, figured it out quickly, then added oil after the fact. Just a wild guess. Probably also impossible to prove.
This is something that has me curious as well. Coolant/water in the oil will wipe out bearings which the shop would have no way of knowing unless they drop the oil pan.
https://sprinter-source.com/forums/index.php?threads/110781/page-3#post-1210333
Cliff notes, pile of junk engine in a pile of junk vehicle.
Why was the oil cooler replaced? What was wrong with it? I'm assuming that the engine was already damaged before the work was performed and was already a gonor but there's no way to know without tearing the whole thing down.
We have a similar problem with a Porsche at my work. Customer bought it cheap at auction. Had a CEL on.
I don't know what all was done but it was quite costly..
It went for several extensive test drives . I even drove it to lunch and back.
Everything seemed good and it did not have any codes or pending codes.
Customer took the car and brought it back 3 days later with the CEL back on. This time it's a p0016 which is a cam to crank timing error.
Something completely different than what we fixed earlier that week. Also something that never came up while it was at my work.
Cleared that code and it immediately came back.
Now the customer is looking at Thousands to remove the engine to repair it. It's almost better to replace the engine due to cost.
Customer is all bent over this but it did not show up before work was performed and not till released to the customer.
We have a similar problem with a Porsche at my work. Customer bought it cheap at auction. Had a CEL on.
I don't know what all was done but it was quite costly..
It went for several extensive test drives . I even drove it to lunch and back.
Everything seemed good and it did not have any codes or pending codes.
Customer took the car and brought it back 3 days later with the CEL back on. This time it's a p0016 which is a cam to crank timing error.
Something completely different than what we fixed earlier that week. Also something that never came up while it was at my work.
Cleared that code and it immediately came back.
Now the customer is looking at Thousands to remove the engine to repair it. It's almost better to replace the engine due to cost.
Customer is all bent over this but it did not show up before work was performed and not till released to the customer.
CleanSump
Site Donor 2026
People sweat over the oil cooler seals failing in the OM642. So people have it done as "preventive maintenance" even though there is no leak. The oil cooler is a heat exchanger that shares coolant passages and oil passages. The material of the seals has been changed twice. It's a bad design with the oil cooler on the block and under the manifolds and all. Everything has to come off for it.
If the tech isn't meticulous, coolant and crud from the top of the block will get into the oil passages and it's quite common for that to cause spun bearings straight out of the shop. Of course, Mercedes and independent shops always say the engine was on it's last legs and it isn't their fault for putting coolant or crud into the oil passages.
My 2008 E320 Sedan has never had a leak in 165k miles and I would never consider doing a "preventive" change. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Because you may fix it so it never works again.
OM642 engines that never had the seals changed don't spin bearings. Tens of thousands of these engines have run hundreds of thousands of miles in Sprinters and sedans with no problem. The SUVs and Sprinter owners who insist on running HDEO instead of the MB229.51/52 oils seam to be the ones that fail.
If the tech isn't meticulous, coolant and crud from the top of the block will get into the oil passages and it's quite common for that to cause spun bearings straight out of the shop. Of course, Mercedes and independent shops always say the engine was on it's last legs and it isn't their fault for putting coolant or crud into the oil passages.
My 2008 E320 Sedan has never had a leak in 165k miles and I would never consider doing a "preventive" change. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Because you may fix it so it never works again.
OM642 engines that never had the seals changed don't spin bearings. Tens of thousands of these engines have run hundreds of thousands of miles in Sprinters and sedans with no problem. The SUVs and Sprinter owners who insist on running HDEO instead of the MB229.51/52 oils seam to be the ones that fail.
The oil cooler on that engine is a known defect and MB has never fixed it. You have to take the engine down to the block and heads to replace a $10 seal. And once fixed it can happen again. I had an 08 OM642 and never had the problem. I had read that heat had something to do with it so I took off my engine cover and when on a trip would raise the hood at rest stops. That was a great running engine.
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