200K KM effect?

We have been warned about using our Sprinters beyond 200,000 kms. Funny things can happen after that amount of kms on the odometer (problems with the common rail/injectors, or even mayor internal problems with th engine). This could be due to bad quality diesel in our part of the world (Argentina), or just a design/engineer flaw from Mercedes' part. Thus my question is if owners in North America (or elsewhere) have encountered problems after the 200k Kms.

I know that many Sprinters go well beyond that amount of kilometers (as they should); my question is regarding any premature problems around 200k kms in other parts of the world. Around here it seems to be an issue...

We sell our units when they reach this amount of kilometers, but just last month one with 190K had a major internal failure, with a punctured block and all...Complete engine replacement. Even though the Sprinter is manufactured here, many components (including the engine block) are imported from Germany.

Our fleet is mostly 413s, with a few 313s as well (same 2500 CDi engine for both).

Any comments? TIA,
Cris

Cristian Torlasco
Andean Roads Motorhome Rentals
http://www.andeanroads.com

Andean Roads said:

...
This could be due to bad quality diesel in our part of the world (Argentina), or just a design/engineer flaw from Mercedes' part. Thus my question is if owners in North America (or elsewhere) have encountered problems after the 200k Kms.

...

Any comments? TIA,
Cris

Cristian Torlasco
Andean Roads Motorhome Rentals
http://www.andeanroads.com

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Cris,
First let me extend you a hale and hearty welcome to the forum.

My NAFTA 2004 2500 with an OM-647 2.7L in-line 5 cylinder engine has about 213,000 miles so far which converts to approx. 342,800 km. There seem to be many Sprinters that go many miles so I don't think what you describe is a design flaw.

You may be on to something with fuel quality. Richard (Altered Sprinter) blames our USA poor quality fuel for some of the issues we seem to have which aren't common in other areas of the world. It has been reported that fuel injector problems can lead to piston failure and other major engine issues. So maybe it is fuel related?

Is approved Mercedes Benz oil easy to get in your part of the world, or is that something people may tend to stray away from? Other than that, I have no real insight for you.

If it is fuel/injector related perhaps replacing the the injectors at 200,000 km's would extend the life? Kinda expensive, and that is just a guess.

Good luck. vic

Andean Roads said:

This could be due to bad quality diesel in our part of the world (Argentina), or just a design/engineer flaw from Mercedes' part.

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Could be fuel - how good is your fuel (sulfur content, cetane rating, lubricity, etc.)? Could be you need to use an additive to boost fuel quality. I know my additive use has greatly reduced the amount of soot in my engine oil.

Christian: Welcome to NAFTA Land U.S.A
Tins 313 CDi 129 HP 300 Newtons two variant engines NAFTA is not comparable as to Euro variants elsewhere.
Engine failure of components can happen either by just getting old through the years or through as many engine cycle starts.
200K is a young engine , however the main thing to maintain is glow plugs and injectors both Tests are available through MB star diagnostic at a reasonable cost considering the time frame involved with injector leak tests one hour, quick test for glow plugs can be done inside of five minutes, to evaluate the engine operating condition including fuel quantity on each hub /cylinders, including voltage consistency and string values for fault codes stored and or present on filtering of all control units. via the ECU and Can bus.
Fuel and oil quality are critical in your area where High to low elevations are experienced, especially with low ambient temperatures. such as mountains.
Fuels must be ULSD with lubrication for upper cylinders and anti foaming agents to prevent moisture on WIF filters. Fuel 15 ppm 47/48 cetane or the latest 10ppm 51 cetane
Oils on high elevation 15W-40 mineral is out as to be proven by Mobil that the oil will not achieve maximum viscosity below 0 Celsius in fact it starts to fail at 5 Celsius with a wind chill factor the heater won't work and the temp gauge stays on zero.
First indicator is a high acidic smell coming back through your front vents,and or by standing at drivers door if RHD this is unburnt fuel and oils combined coming back through your crankcase pipe.
0W-40 Synthetic resolves this issue , where low ambient temps are experienced,
Fuel if you use an upper cylinder lubricant non alcohol based this keeps your fuel in top end condition of which keeps pumps clean injectors free of excessive carbon build ups and extends the life span of your glow plugs, including the internal build up of the engine where varnish films tend to build. Upper cylinder lubricant keeps the combustion chambers clean especially the valves. I'd consider a two year life span of MB Coolants 2 years max in high elevation ares where 0 Celsius is prominent.
Most Rental MB sprinters VW Crafters are sold off at less than 200Ks but on sold to budget RV hie Firms , they go well over 500K before being sold off to a private buyer, Glow plugs and injectors are usually replaced at 200 thousand , not because of failure, but rather through absolute minimum maintenance.
Sprinters are everywhere in Australia half come out of Argentina no problems really apart from Injectors Glow plugs and high pressure fuel pumps all caused by fuels and oils = lack of being maintained and poor quality after markets fittings, such as Fuel and oil filters.
Cheers Richard

.

Gotta love it "A picture is worth a thousand words"!

Andean Roads said:

We have been warned about using our Sprinters beyond 200,000 kms. Funny things can happen after that amount of kms on the odometer (problems with the common rail/injectors, or even mayor internal problems with th engine). This could be due to bad quality diesel in our part of the world (Argentina), or just a design/engineer flaw from Mercedes' part. Thus my question is if owners in North America (or elsewhere) have encountered problems after the 200k Kms.

I know that many Sprinters go well beyond that amount of kilometers (as they should); my question is regarding any premature problems around 200k kms in other parts of the world. Around here it seems to be an issue...

We sell our units when they reach this amount of kilometers, but just last month one with 190K had a major internal failure, with a punctured block and all...Complete engine replacement. Even though the Sprinter is manufactured here, many components (including the engine block) are imported from Germany.


eet is mostly 413s, with a few 313s as well (same 2500 CDi engine for both).

Any comments? TIA,
Cris

Cristian Torlasco
Andean Roads Motorhome Rentals
http://www.andeanroads.com

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are these tn1's or nc3v

All his posted pictures are T1Ns.

hkpierce said:

All his posted pictures are T1Ns.

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And, the engines in his are 2.2 liter 4 cylinder units, while ours are 2.7 liter 5s. Don't know if durability would be different.

talkinghorse43 said:

And, the engines in his are 2.2 liter 4 cylinder units, while ours are 2.7 liter 5s. Don't know if durability would be different.

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If it's true that they are using 2.2 L 4 pots that's a good point. I guess maybe we should dissect this a bit.

Andean Roads - Aren't the Andes mountains? Aren't they BIG mountains??

Motorhome - Aren't motor homes generally heavy? One less cyclinder can't help.

Rentals - "Sure Honey, there's room to pack all that stuff." "We gotta vacation spot to get to so put the pedal to the floor up those hills... it's a rental."


Maybe 200,000 km is time to move on? vic

200K to 300K seems to be the mark that injector problems and black death creep up.
Since I had injector seals leaking and black death at 334K+ in my 2003, it has led me to examine this seal issue. I am not a metallurgist, but I have spent the most part of my life in metalcutting and various metal components assembly. These seals are made of copper, a very soft metal, and because of its softness/hardness, this aids in the sealing process. However, due to the extreme pressures in the fuel injection process, I find it amazing that these soft metal seals last as long as they do. As much as the injectors themselves cost, it takes a "pocket change" item to make the whole process work. It seems like Mercedes could come up with a better, more durable material than copper.

sssprinters said:

It seems like Mercedes could come up with a better, more durable material than copper.

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I still haven't figured out why a threaded injector bore and threaded injector housings and a durable seal between the injector top and the head are such horribly bad ideas.

-Jon

works for me

Copper is good for this type seal because it's soft initially to conform to surface irregularities, giving a good seal, and hard finally (due to work hardening) to resist further deformation during service. If the injector were retained by screwing it into the head (like a glow plug), then the design would doubtless be more complex and less reliable considering that the injectors need two connections - one for very high pressure fuel and the other for the firing signal.

My own opinion is that the problem with the injectors is the steel body, not the copper seal. My guess is that the steel body eventually rusts enough to stick an injector in the bore in the aluminum head (rust is dry and hard when hot) and on cooldown, the differential contraction (aluminum more than steel) pushes the injector hard enough into the copper seal to further deform it and eventually (after x cycles) relaxes preload enough to result in a leak. I keep engine oil in the injector wells to keep this from happening and haven't had a leak to-date even though water regularly gets under the cover. Given no serious accidents and good health I expect to keep mine until the body rusts away, so time will tell.

how much oil do you use? just enough to wet down the wells?
and you have never had seal problems?

sssprinters said:

how much oil do you use? just enough to wet down the wells?
and you have never had seal problems?

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I use enough oil to form a visible pool around each injector and it eventually needs to be replenished due to water displacing it from time-to-time (drips out of the drain at the back of the injector valley). I check it at least every oil change. Haven't had a seal problem yet, but I've had 4 injectors replaced. Right now, 4 is original, 5 was changed at 30k, 2 was changed at 99k and 1 & 3 were replaced at 190k. All were changed because they were defective. The two last changed were rusty, but the rust was very soft and they came out of their wells easily (by hand).

talkinghorse43 said:

I use enough oil to form a visible pool around each injector and it eventually needs to be replenished due to water displacing it from time-to-time (drips out of the drain at the back of the injector valley). I check it at least every oil change. Haven't had a seal problem yet, but I've had 4 injectors replaced. Right now, 4 is original, 5 was changed at 30k, 2 was changed at 99k and 1 & 3 were replaced at 190k. All were changed because they were defective. The two last changed were rusty, but the rust was very soft and they came out of their wells easily (by hand).

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interesting, on mine with 330K+ miles, to the best of my knowledge, all the injectors are still original, while #2 and #5 had the black death, the others did not have rust that I recall, and they were not very difficult to remove, although pullers were used.

all these original injectors except for #5, which had to be taken apart to remove due to its location, were put back in with new seals.

gotta think about this oil though.

Aqua Puttana said:

If it's true that they are using 2.2 L 4 pots that's a good point. I guess maybe we should dissect this a bit.

Andean Roads - Aren't the Andes mountains? Aren't they BIG mountains??

Motorhome - Aren't motor homes generally heavy? One less cyclinder can't help.

Rentals - "Sure Honey, there's room to pack all that stuff." "We gotta vacation spot to get to so put the pedal to the floor up those hills... it's a rental."


Maybe 200,000 km is time to move on? vic

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Harry Potters 4/inline have a higher differential ratio and manual plus Sprintshift. peak 300Nm no emission add on's to slow you up. The 213 313 413 cdi is Mercedes most successful engine and still runs in the current NCV today twin turbo.manual and choice of differentials plus two manual transmissions to chose from.

Thanks everyone for your fast and insightful answers. I am not a mechanical guru, so I will spend some time researching the characteristics of local fuel, etc. in order to facilitate a constructive dialogue. More on that later.

As far as the Andes, yes, some passes between Chile and Argentina go for hundreds of kilometers above 4,000 meters, reaching in some cases 5,000 meters above sea level. Our units loose power big time in these instances, but that is expected. Most of the time, however, the driving is done close to sea level.

Thanks again to everyone, this is a great forum. More information as soon as I get data. It would be incredibly useful to learn more about what is going on!

Cris