Dear Ray,
I bought a new Mercedes GLC 350e which has a 2.0 liter turbocharged engine along with electric drive last December. It’s a plug-in hybrid and I am very happy with it. I have a concern, though. After I brought it home I opened the owners manual and read through it, I discovered that Mercedes considers oil usage between oil changes to be normal if it is as much as one quart every 600 miles.I have never had a car that ever used that much oil, and I even had a Pinto once with 140k miles on it. I asked the service manager at my dealership what his experience with these car was and he said that he’s never had one with oil consumption problems.So is there something I should know about new cars that makes them prone to oil usage? Do I have to keep an unusually close eye on the oil level? If it starts to use that much oil, it would cost so much as to negate the advantages of a hybrid.
That is lawyerspeak to try to avoid warranty claims. My 2012 Toyota makes the exact one quart in 600 mile disclaimer and yet it uses less than 1/8th of a quart in my annual 6000 to 7000 mile oil changes. High performance engines might have a little looser tolerances to reduce friction but they really shouldn’t use much more.
Keeping a regular check of oil is something you should do no matter brand or what the manual says . Pick one day a week to check the level before starting the vehicle . I use Saturday.
Thanks. I suspected as much, but since the last new car I bought was 13 years ago, I was taken aback, especially with Mercedes.
Thanks, I’ll get used to doing that. My 2006 Nissan Frontier doesn’t use a drop, so I’ve gotten out of the habit.
I had a 2011 Toyota Sienna and now have a 2017 Sienna. The owner’s manual for both Siennas states that one quart every 600 miles is not excessive. My son now owns the 2011 and it has gone 140,000 miles and uses no oil. I put a lot of miles on in a short time period and I go 10,000 miles between oil changes and I have never had to add a quart between changes. I use the recommended 0W-20 oil.
I have owned cars in the past where I would add oil. My 1971 Ford Maverick used a quart every 1200 miles. It used oil at that rate when I bought it at 20,000.miles and it used oil at the same 1 quart per 1200 miles when I traded it at 100,000 miles. I didn’t.trade it because of the oil.consumption rate. I traded it because I was on the road a lot. I spent more on Preparation H from.having to ride in the Maverick than I spent on the amount of oil I had to add between 4000 mile oil changes.
I guess I haven’t gotten with the times. Back in the old days we didn’t get concerned about having to add a quart of oil every 600 miles. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Consumer Reports in its automobile tests reported the oil consumption in miles per quart after break-in. Many cars back then used a quart of oil between 700 and 1000 miles. Today, some owners think.it is outrageous to have to add s quart of oil between 5000 mile oil changes.
Thanks for the reply!
You can check the engine oil level from the drivers seat in your Mercedes by pushing buttons if you are curious. You don’t really need to monitor the oil level yourself, if the engine oil level becomes low you will see an alert on the instrument cluster display, Mercedes has had oil level monitoring systems for decades.
Over the past 4 years or so, we have had a number of posts from owners of new Audis who were experiencing high oil consumption. When they complained to Audi on the corporate level, they were all told that the “normal” rate of oil consumption for their new cars was “1 qt per 600 miles”.
As was said, the OP needs to do regular checks of his oil level, preferably weekly. And, if/when the oil needs to be replenished between oil changes, he should make sure that he buys oil that complies with the Mercedes specification. He doesn’t need to buy it from the MB dealership, but he needs to be VERY careful when selecting oil from the shelf at the auto parts store.
A technique that’s worked for me over the decades with buying used cars (I’ve never bought new) is inspection of the tailpipe.
Some soot is OK, as long as it’s dry, not oily.
A stain on the surrounding area is bad news (diesels excepted).