Is mercedes a good engine compare to detroit or caterpilar?

I had one with an 8 speed Mentor when I worked for Central. It sucked, lol. I can't remember the bottom end. It was around 1000 but the range was wider because of the small engine and transmission.

 

It's a 12 liter, high torque engine. It don't have much in the horsepower area regardless of the numbers. I run a 370 ISX / 10 and I can run off and leave a MBE 400.
We have about 30 of them, no big problems to speak of except the fleet mgr. complains that they didn't live up to their billing on fuel and reliability. He tells me Mercedes is leaving the class 8 market like Cat but even if they weren't , he would not buy this engine again.

 

Gentelmen! Mercedes PLD unit has four torque limits. I can change them with EOL programming with Mercedes Star Diagnose C3. But I newer do it. Lowered 850-1100 RPM torq limit makes driver shift more frequantly and it saves fuel. And saves engine too.

OM460 is 12.7L, not 12. OM457 is not used on semis in the USA, on buses only! So you will not see 12L MBE4000 in Freigtliner.

Mercedes PLD engines will be discontinued soon. Mercedes redesigne Actrof for six in line engine becouse they will use DT15 only.

 

Better talk to the dealers here Pablo. They sell this engine as a MBE 400 everyday all day and .07 wont save this grey piece of iron. Junk is junk.

Sorry....

 

NO, The Benz motors are junk. They do not have good pull power and from what I've read from others, they are not very reliable. You will also notice what LOW resale values a truck has with a Benz motor in it. Good choice is the Series 60.

 

Limited low end torque is a software thing. I do not really know why do they programm ECMs this way.

Torque limiting point of Mercedes PLD unit (by Temic): 900, 1080, 1440 and 1800 RPM.

OM460 torque limit is 2100 NM at 1800 RPM, but 1000 at 1080.

That's why Turkish OM457 (12L,400hp) pulls better from low speed.

I did engine reprogramming. It is not easy. You cant do it with DDRS ore DDDL. You need Mercedes Star Diagnose C3 with EOL modul ore Mercedes MiniDiag with EOL.

You cant do it with RP1210 adapter via J1708 ore J1939. There is unused in the USA pin #13 (ISO K-line).

It is not all, you cant read EOL data with DDDL, it is possible with Mercedes Star Diagnose in "Necessary informatiom for ordering controll unit data" menu!

I'm not really sure why mercedes limits low end torque in the USA. Seems to me the know that the best fuel efficiancy is at 1200-1500 rpm and they do it to make driver shift down.

About engine reliability. what things are bad, you know. I wanna tell you about advantages of PLD engines comparing with Series 60.

1. Easy cold start. Fuel never goes too thik in cyl. block.
2. Ajustable starting fuel value. Mercedes stars w/o ether ore flame starting system when it is -30 dgr C outdoors (company I work for operates 150 trucks with Mercedes engines, flame starting system is not reliable enought and I used to disable it to get no fault codes. Last winter was really bad. Unusually cold. No starting problems. For Volvo D13 and for Series 60 this winter was the nightmare).
3. Less money for fuel system repare. It is PLD. You can change injector, nozzle, PLD unit internall parts, but not all the Unit injector.
4. Some engines are with decompression valve and you can use vehicle inertion fully with engaged gear w/o engine braking (if you want of cource). it saves fuel (if you know how to use it).
5. Less EGR issues.
6. Less electrical gremlins, becouse Mercedes wiring harness is very good.
7. two speed fan. Saves fuel, less noise.
8. six small cylinder heads, easy to remove/install, no reason to pull all the cyl. head to fix one cylinder. Cheapper cyl. head gasket. It saves money!!! No oil leak between cylinders.
9. Pushrod design. I've never seen cam related issue, camshaft is very good lubricated.
10. SRS and TRS sensors are replceble with ABS sensors.
11. Runs with any SRS ore TRS sensor.
12. Self ajustible cylinder ballance. Runs smoothly
13. Build in compression test function (like on Volvo engines). I can check compression with laptop.
14. Good and reliable turbocharger. Usually made by Schwizer, but I see BW, Garret and other.

But I wanna tell you one bad thing: if someone is not carefull with pressure plate it is easy to damage flightwheel tone ring. Crankshaft sensor will not work and no cylinder ballance ajusting. Engine runs roughtly. Sometimes when clutch release bearings fails flightwheel may be damaged with balls.

 

It's best to stay with a motor easy to find parts for imop

 

You are right man, OM457 and OM460 are not so easy to get some parts. Engines are made in Brazil and Turkey. But price of parts in good.

Very popular in EU OM501 and OM502 do no fit US trucks becouse of V-design.

Anyway Mercedes PLD engines will be discontinued. They will start with OM501/502 and OM457/460. Mercedes will use DT15 only. That's why they redesigned Actros and now it is a mix ore MP3 and Argosy with facelifting.

Later they will make new engine for smaller trucks like M2 and Atego. Seems to me they will make a new CRD engine too. With SCR and EGR of course!

So next year all Mercedes and Freightliner trucks will be offered with DT15. They say this engine is Euro-6 ready and they are ready for newer EPA standarts (what can be worse EPA 2010???).

 

Gotta be something to that resale value Pablo. In the U.S., the same truck with the same miles but MBE 400 goes 10k +/- less on the lot. Series 60 daycab with 550k is pulling 38k on the lot and the MBE can't get past 29k with 400,000 miles. They just don't sell, can't get parts and many complaints of having to dissasemble the right side for simple repairs.

 

seems to me there are two problems with in line PLD engines. Parts and no experience. Parts for MBE is the issue in Russia too. Some parts MBE4000 shares with German engines, some parts are made in Turkey and they ship them in a week, but some parts like crankshaft are made in Vrazil only and it is really a pain!