MBs extended 20,000 mi oil change intervals!

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CJPJ

CJPJ

2008 3500 170 EXTD 3.0 V6 OM642.993 4.182
It's time to remove and cleanup the dead animal carcasses remains and then determine if there's impact damage.

lindenengineering said:
OK,forum members so you see a line of wetness from the fore to aft of the tank amid ships of the carcass.
What is that telling you?
Dennis
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ps upon determination [carcass is human] discreetly notify the police
 
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mikeme

2015 LTV IB: 2015 3500 V6
Find the leak


At a minimum, clean and observe without delay.

(on a previous vehicle, it was a sign that the tubing exiting the fuel pump was about to fail from corrosion, causing a fuel dump as bad as an overloaded jet dumping fuel to get light enough to land)
 
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lindenengineering

Well-known member
For info.
The tank is a blow molded unit. There are seams around the tank which are more pronounced at the f'ward end. That f/ward end has an alum shield attached to it by pin clip washers.

What is the purpose of the shield?
The tank design mold has changed slightly since 2010, anyone have an idea why?
Dennis
 
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mikeme

2015 LTV IB: 2015 3500 V6
Aluminum shields are usually installed to mitigate heat. (from exhaust system and emission control catalytic components)
 
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Deleted member 50714

Guest
The purpose of the shield was one of the first questions I put to the forum. Heat shield, I was told. Make sense cuz it doesn't cover the entire forward end of tank to be any good for impact protection.
 
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Deleted member 50714

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mikeme said:
Aluminum shields are usually installed to mitigate heat. (from exhaust system and emission control catalytic components)
Click to expand...
Are they aluminum, I thought they were galvanized ferrous metal of some type???
 
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lindenengineering

Well-known member
NO!
Its there to protect the f'ward end of the tank from flying stones/debris thrown up by the front wheel.
The bloody zorst pipe etc is on "onth tother" side of the rig!

The tank has been changed a bit over the years but the MOST vulnerable leaking tanks are from 2007 to early 2010.

Flying stones and debris erodes the tank carcass and opens up the seams to leakage, weakening the tank in general! --In other words its got holes in it!
Now if fuel can leak out , water can get in by wheel spray . wading, sailing and buggering about off road on stone covered unmetalled roads !
Whaddah yah call it --boondocking in waterlogged Walmart parking lots is included!:laughing:

So in comes rig with $15000 of injection & FIE parts defective job caused by water in the fuel.
First thing of course is to blame some fuel station for bad fuel or some previous bad servicing OR of course MB for making crappy vans.:laughing:

First thing to do is to look at the tank regularly and even more frequently if you go off road.
If its wet, its go holes in it somewhere & water can get in!
Get a new tank maybe-they are cheap insurance against wallet flushes!
All elementary my dear Watsons
Dennis
 
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Deleted member 50714

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Well, if it's intended purpose is impact shield, Gunther forgot to cover a vulnerable portion.
 

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143paul

143paul

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I agree with you for sure - I have the diesel engine - and I plan on doing just the oil and filter every 5,000 mi and take it in for the 20,000mi to stay good on my warranty.
 
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trz453 said:
Ok Avanti, here's some numbers that I've crunched in a quick analysis:

According to the EPA, one petroleum-industry defined 'barrel' of distillate fuel oil (which has fairly similar density and thermal energy compared to motor oil) contains 42 US gallons, or 168 quarts. When it is burned, it produced 429.61kg (0.430 metric tons) of CO2.

Lets suppose that there are two 2.1 Sprinter owners, and each drive the vehicle 200,000 miles. One of them changes the oil every 10k, and the other one does 20k intervals. Let us, for the sake of simplicity, assume that no oil gets burned in either engine.

The person who changes oil at 10k generates 12.15x20= 243 quarts of waste motor oil. This is equal to 243/168=1.446 barrels of oil. Burn this for heat or industry and we get 1.446x0.430= 0.622 metric tons of CO2.

The person who changes oil at 20k generates 12.15x10= 121.5 quarts of waste motor oil. You can see that this is half of the oil, so its half as many metric tons, or 0.311 metric tons of CO2.

So here we are talking about a 200k mile period, and based on one Sprinter owner changing the oil twice as often, they've got less than a third of a metric ton of CO2 difference.

Then according to this article by the Guardian, to build a new midsize sedan creates 17 metric tons of CO2, and a fully appointed luxury SUV creates 35 metric tons of CO2.

I don't know where a Sprinter would fit, your guess is as good as mine, but its probably on the upper end because its a heavy vehicle with a lot of sheetmetal and paint, but it also has a more spartan interior, so less plastics for the cargo version. Lets split the difference between the carbon footprint of the midsize sedan and the luxury SUV, and assume that a Sprinter being built produces 26 metric tons of CO2. Does that sound fair?

From this basic analysis, we can see that if someone changes their oil twice as often and drops it off at a recycling center, the additional environmental impact in terms of greenhouse gases is insignificant compared to how much gets produced when a new vehicle is built.

Furthermore, this is only accounting for CO2 generated. All of that material in a new vehicle must be mined from the earth in some way. And when an old vehicle is scrapped, some of it can be recycled, but a lot of it cannot be, so it takes up space in a landfill.

This is where I was coming from when I stated that its far better to keep an older vehicle running as long as possible, even if it isn't efficient and requires more frequent oil changes, versus what we have in our throwaway culture where everybody wants to lease the latest model every few years.

Because of this, I have to argue that if one can extend the life of an engine (and the vehicle as a result) by say 50,000 miles or more by halving the manufacturer-recommended oil change interval over the life of the vehicle, then they are still doing the environment a huge favor because they are delaying the manufacture of a new vehicle by that number of miles driven. On the other hand, even if they don't extend the life of the vehicle at all (this seems to be your position, Avanti) then in the end, the environmental impact of the extra waste oil generated is still not significant compared to what it costs the environment to build a new vehicle in our new-car-hungry culture.

If a Sprinter user changes their oil at 10k miles intervals, but they drive the vehicle for 15 years and 600k miles and ALWAYS choose to repair it, then they have a much smaller carbon footprint compared to another Sprinter user who runs 20k oil change intervals, and replaces the vehicle with a new one every 5 years or 200k miles. Of course one could argue that a second owner might take good care of the vehicle thus extending its life, but it seems that most used high-milage Sprinters have been run nearly to death by their first owners with minimal upkeep, especially if they were used in a fleet and driven by a different person each day. I think you'd agree that its rare to see a second owner treat a high-mileage vehicle better than the first, so usually these vehicles don't last a whole lot longer before they get scrapped.
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Excellent! Certainly blows Avanti's position all to hell.
 
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D

Deleted member 50714

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lindenengineering said:
For info.
The tank is a blow molded unit. There are seams around the tank which are more pronounced at the f'ward end. That f/ward end has an alum shield attached to it by pin clip washers.

What is the purpose of the shield?
The tank design mold has changed slightly since 2010, anyone have an idea why?
Dennis
Click to expand...
No, I have no clue, please tell.
 
2

220629

Well-known member
trz453 said:
... I think you'd agree that its rare to see a second owner treat a high-mileage vehicle better than the first, so usually these vehicles don't last a whole lot longer before they get scrapped.
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I see it the other way around. As to extending the service life, the early life maintenance is probably more important than what the second owner does. A vehicle can be ruined in its early life, the results of poor maintenance early on surface as it ages.

So it is good that people change their oil more often than required. Your investment is for the next owner. :thumbup:

mikeme said:
Bobnoxious said:
Excellent! Certainly blows Avanti's position all to hell.
Click to expand...
But there is no data which shows that oil change interval reduction increases the life of a vehicle over one maintained to the spec.
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We don't need no stinkin' data in an oil thread. Everybody knows that the 3000 mile OCI is the gold standard.

:cheers: vic
 
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Deleted member 50714

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mikeme said:
But there is no data which shows that oil change interval reduction increases the life of a vehicle over one maintained to the spec.
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And conversely, there's no data that it doesn't.
 
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mikeme said:
But there is no data which shows that oil change interval reduction increases the life of a vehicle over one maintained to the spec.
Click to expand...
But that wasn't the issue. The issue was the environmental impact of oil changes. I would venture to guess that it is certainly less of an impact than birthing carbon producing children, who will be polluting for 80+ years . Or, superfluous drive thu's, and 75,000 people driving to a sporting event that could easily be watched on TV. Or, legions of motorhomes motoring about the country, sightseeing.

Consider your local Walmart parking lot, and take a look at all the oil spots. Then multiply that by all of the parking lots in America. Curious the amount. Then, when it rains, a portion of parking lot oil flows into storm drain's. Along the coastal areas, this flow eventually finds a path to the ocean. Interior regions, may find a way into the aquifer? Dunno. These are all questions.

So, if we're going to talk about environmental impact, there are certainly other human activities harmful than changing oil.

Inevitably, either by our doing, or natural, cataclysmic events, humanity will eventually parish. It's a cycle, and nothing science can do about it.
 
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