Hi, A Newbie here. Heavily considering a MB diesel car. probably turbo. I wanna run Bio-Diesel. Some of my driving is very short trips - to the grocery store, to work etc. I've heard diesels are bad for this kind of driving. I also do plenty of longer drives, but I'm worried about ruining something pre-maturely in the short trips. I've also heard that if I'm gonna drive shorter trips, the more modern engines (with the aluminum head and hydaulic valves) are better because they heat up quicker and are genreally technicaly better engines.

So, the questions are...

1 is this true? Should I stick with the newer engines? Are they called something special or do they have a diffent designator or name?
2 In which year cars are these found? Is there a place I can go to see all of the year to year changes in the class cars?
3 300 or 190 more reliable? (I'm sure this one will have heavy battle on both sides)

Any advice - I"ll take it. I"m really new to the MB world and have been surfing around a bit trying to soak up as much info as possible. Thanks again and I look forward to joining the MB family in one form or another...

Tom

 

Answers.

1) Well it depends on how newer. I also found out the hard way that newer doen't nessarily means better. And remember that aluminum material engines are durable, and deal with heat good, but is easily cracked more than other materials. Also newer engines tend to have more eletronics meaning more things can go wrong meaning more highly expensive repairs for easy fixes, because of special plug -ins, computers, and othe high tech things. I heard many older diesel engines lasting over 500,000 miles and still kicking while newer ones barely break 200,000 and is ready to kick the bucket. And some are too new to say.

2) I'm assuming you are talking about Mercedes diesel so here they are from what I can think of off the top of my head.
E-Class diesels:
1970s 220D 4-cylinder
190D 1980s-1990s
240D 1974-1983
300D Non Turbo or Turbo ?-1985
300D All with trubo diesel 1986-1995
And the newer 1997 and up diesels E-Class.

S-Class Diesels:
300SD ?-1980 5cylinder
300SD/L 1980-1987 (W126) 5 cylinder until 1986-1987 6cylinder
350SD/L 1990-1991 (W126) 3.5 6 cylinder
To find the pics to all mercedes models I'll have the site later when I find it again, but until then, Ebay is a sure bet.

3) Any Mercedes espically the classic diesels are known to not die or last for long long long long time peroiod. I can't really say which is more reliable because I don't have much expeience with the 190 diesels. I know for sure the 300 is reliable and either one is just as relieable as the other as long as it was maintained properly.

Good luck and hope to have you in the MercedesClub soon.