Mercedes 240D - Mobil 1 Turbo Diesel Truck?

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I have four 1983 Mercedes Benz 240D's. I just got the 4th one last week and is the best addition by far with only 65,000 miles.

My question is if people here think that Mobil 1 TDT oil is the best oil to be using for these older diesels?

I have one that I bought 2 years ago with 185,000 miles on it that I switched from dino to M1-TDT and it started losing almost 1 quart/1,000 miles. I switched back to dino oil and the oil consumption dropped back to normal levels. Any ideas why synthetic would have been consumed at higher rates?

Any advice would be appreciated - I'm completely addicted to these cars and want them to last as long as possible.
 
I think with the usual lots of blowby and the oil getting relatively dirty (soot) quickly, I'd focus on a 15w40 of your choice and focus on filtration quality. As you know the filters are pretty good on these anyway, but maybe some UOAs will show you "the best".
 
I loved my 240D...it got frequent changes with dino 15W40, whatever I could get on sale...I would feed it 5W40 TDT if I had one now, and I suspect that the consumption will got down after running it for a while.

That said, the TDT is far better than the engine got when it was young, and many of those OM-616 engines ran to 400K+ on regular 15W40 dino...so I wouldn't sweat it either way...
 
I had two '78 240Ds years ago, so you've got me beat.
I wouldn't bother with the expense of M1 TDT in this engine.
These things do just fine on any dino 15W-40, with maybe a CF rated 10W-40 for winter.
Your engines will last virtually forever on any oil of an appropriate SAE grade.
Soot loading is a real problem with these engines, so you can't run any oil for very long.
IIRC, Mercedes recommended 3K drains on mine, and the thing held nearly seven quarts.
No need to use an expensive syn oil in this engine.
I doubt that it'll know or care.
 
Give Rotella T6 5w40 a try. See what happens. Same class as the M1 TDT. Stellar reviews for extended intervals, turbo's, detergent levels, zzdp (1250+ppm) and lowering consumption. $21.50 gal Walmart.
 
Yeah RT6 is what I use in my 240D during the winter months. Sometimes if I am feeling particulary thrifty, or just short on funds, I have also ran a 50/50% mix of regular Rotella T and T6.

I know that mixing oils is not really looked highly upon with the BITOG Intelligentsia, but I haven't really had any problems doing that. Doesn't really help you much in the way savings by doing that, but I did notice that my oil use went down when mixing RT6 with Rotella T, as opposed to running 100% RT6.

BTW, I almost lost pretty much the exact amount per OCI while running RT6, as you were losing while running TDT. I never ran RT6 for consecutive OCI's so i cannot really comment on whether eventually oil use would've gone down. But after having worked mine pretty hard for about 10 years now, I would say that these 123 engines tend to like Dino better.

and congrats on the new ride. I definitely prefer the 240D over the 300D.. I've had both, and the 240 is much quieter engine, with a lot less vibration than the 300D in the same 123 chasis. I think the 240D engines just have overall better balance, which is one of the most important factors in engine longevity.
 
I have a bunch of these and love w123 cars. Many have swapped their OM616/617 cars over to synthetics and love it. Besides easier starting, studies a while back indicated about 1/2 the rate of timing chain "stretch" (wear) when synthetics were utilized.

Many on their changeover to syn have seen consumption, though the rates often hve dropped unless there is a mechanical issue, by 20k miles or so.

If your engine is tight and sound, id definitely try to change over to TDT or T6. Both will perform well. Id personally use UOA to determine TBN loss and soot loading to identify an OCI.

Lots of these cars have gone well over 300k on 15w-40 and other oils, but I believe entirely that you cna do better with syn, and TDT is a great choice.
 
Originally Posted By: Hessam
I definitely prefer the 240D over the 300D.. I've had both, and the 240 is much quieter engine, with a lot less vibration than the 300D in the same 123 chasis. I think the 240D engines just have overall better balance, which is one of the most important factors in engine longevity.


lol, my 240, which has 73k and is like new, shakes far more, and is noisier than any 617.952 equipped car that I have owned. The 300D cars also have more sound deadening, IIRC. And on the highway, the RPMs are far different, which makes a huge difference too!
 
That is true, the RPM on the 240D is much higher on the highway. my 81 doesn't even have an RPM monitor (just a huge clock where the RPM guage should be)... but when cruising on the highway at around 75 or so, you can hear that the engine is turning over at least 3000 RPM.

on the shaking of your 240D with 75K.... what type oil are you running now? have you noticed any difference in the shaking running synthetic versus dino? or difference between different brands/formulas? My 240D always seems to run the quietest and have the least amount of shaking running Rotella T
 
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You load them to a site like photobucket, and then embed the urls for the pictures in a post.

Definitely want to see pics of that 65k w123!
 
The 65k album is private so cant see it. Love the oriental red color.

Let me know when youre selling the low mileage ones!!!
 
All the w123s in mine and many others stables run great on 5w-40 and so Id run that over a 15wt.
 
Hopefully this will work:

http://s1308.beta.photobucket.com/user/83benz/library/240D


I'm guess the 15W40 Amsoil OE version is what people here would recommend for this old diesel?

There are also "Premium" diesel oils from Amsoil but it looks like these are for newer diesels - is that correct?


Doubt I'll be selling these anytime soon - I LOVE these cars and they aren't making anything close to these ever again. SIMPLE, WELL BUILT, and RUN FOREVER.
 
I wouldn't recommend any 15w-40. I'd run any of the 5w-40 HDEOs that meet MB 228.3 spec with confidence. That makes RT6 5w-40 the easiest, IMO.
 
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