Originally Posted by BullFrog
HDDP,
my Mercedes with 50K original miles just had its lifters replaced for a 3rd time. The dealer's foreman advised that he has seen this problem alot with the 320's especially in the ML's. Many benzes in south florida with the 3.2 sound the same, loud ticking. The company is aware of this and they issued a TSB on it also for the 2.3 Kompressor engine.
My XFire base coupe was horrible to the point that DC lemon'd the car and replaced it with another XFire but a limited one. When i was at the lot picking the new XFire they fired up a brand new limited coupe in blue and the ticking was SO BAD that the General Manager had them pull it off the lot and into the service area. So its not a rare problem, it seems very common with this engine. Now the question is why this premature failure. The Benz dealer say's its thin oil that we are running (BOGUS) but oh well. If you get a real answer i'd appreciate the feedback. I'm tired of replacing lifters both on XFire's and Benz.
I'll revisit Metric Motors and ask the question again. The last time I spoke with Mike he said the 3.2L engine is pretty solid, He said that since I run the car very hard on the track at least 12 weekends per year, I would probably see problems with the valves before anything else. Perhaps I just discounted this comment as something that would only happen because of my hard driving of the car...
If you want to find out for yourself, these guys are the best MB engine rebuilders on the West Coast
http://www.mercedesengines.net/