E280 CDI Air Intake ..OEM or aftermarket??

[Troutman]

Hi. New to MB and a beautiful 2006 E280 CDI Estate in dark blue and light tan interior , 85k miles full history and in superb condition.
I bought it 2 weeks ago in Surrey and drove it home the next day after an overnight in Oxford at a friends house. It drove perfect from Surrey to Oxford but heading North up the M40 it started to produce a lot of smoke and had lost some power. It was still driving well apart from smoke on acceleration which I kept to minimum..got back home and went on holiday so I'm back into the car to work out what is wrong, I can't get it plugged into a STAR because I live about 65miles from anywhere and I don't really want to drive it. I removed the air intake manifold bat wing thing as I could see oil around the join to turbo, it is broken and the orange seal has split , PCV valve had been letting oil into turbo so I bought a new MB one (PCV valve not turbo) , before I go any further I need to get a new air intake as It's broken so question is does anyone have any joy with a particular aftermarket brand or is OEM MB the way to go for this part considering it has the MAF sensors built in as well.?

I'm not going to do anything with it until I get this replaced , it's in a terrible state..which means it's been removed many times for servicing which I suppose is good..right?

One other thing , I checked the oil level when I got home (next day) and it was very high , slightly over the MAX, so I removed about 500ml to get it just below max.

 

[boxer 01]

I presume it's the om642 v6 and a new batwing air intake will cost you a pretty penny from MB. I decided to cut off the broken collar which fits onto turbo and replaced it with a silicone tee and it's been fine. Does away with the orange seals too. I believe the aftermarket ones aren't very reliable.

 

[Troutman]

I presume it's the om642 v6 and a new batwing air intake will cost you a pretty penny from MB. I decided to cut off the broken collar which fits onto turbo and replaced it with a silicone tee and it's been fine. Does away with the orange seals too. I believe the aftermarket ones aren't very reliable.

Yeah sorry OM642 V6 and yes MB OEM one is £5-600 , aftermarket ones vary but I always try to steer clear of them but just wondered if there was a make that works as well as OEM. I did see that silicone hose repair but I always like to keep things as they left the factory .

 

[ALFAitalia]

Yes....keeping them original (so that's expensive, poor quality and easily broken) seems like the way forward!

 

[Troutman]

Yes....keeping them original (so that's expensive, poor quality and easily broken) seems like the way forward!

Well this one has lasted 16yrs , from experience most aftermarket stuff is a total waste of money but I'm asking if anyone has bought one of the more expensive aftermarket ones and ran it for several years with no problems.

 

[simmon01]

I presume it's the om642 v6 and a new batwing air intake will cost you a pretty penny from MB. I decided to cut off the broken collar which fits onto turbo and replaced it with a silicone tee and it's been fine. Does away with the orange seals too. I believe the aftermarket ones aren't very reliable.

Hi Boxer, looks like you did that just over a year ago? Still looks good to me and the usual oil leak onto inlet port motor isn't there either.

 

[DSM10000]

Yeah sorry OM642 V6 and yes MB OEM one is £5-600 , aftermarket ones vary but I always try to steer clear of them but just wondered if there was a make that works as well as OEM. I did see that silicone hose repair but I always like to keep things as they left the factory .

When I replaced the intake on my OM642 Mercedes about 3 years ago due to a MAF sensor failure Edinburgh charged £280 for the part which was a manufacturer refurbished one with the original part then returned to them.

It may be worth asking if this is still available.

 

[gusferlizi]

Yes, Mercedes "reman" batwing is 300 quid after core return.

I think the smoking issue is a bad turbo.

But most commonly torn boost pipes, and a slight bind of the variable turbo mechanism.

 

[Troutman]

I picked up a very good almost new OEM one from a breaker on FB. £120.
Fitted a new fuel pressure sensor and O2 sensor as that is what flagged up with my cheap OBD and it now runs perfect
No smoke , full power and a joy to drive.
That V6 is fantastisch

 

[gusferlizi]

I picked up a very good almost new OEM one from a breaker on FB. £120.
Fitted a new fuel pressure sensor and O2 sensor as that is what flagged up with my cheap OBD and it now runs perfect
No smoke , full power and a joy to drive.
That V6 is fantastisch

I've not seen either a MAF or rail pressure sensor fail on this engine yet. Curious to mess with if you haven't binned the parts.

O2 sensor is good to replace, but essentially meaningless to this ECU when no DPF is installed

 

[Supernoodle]

O2 sensor is good to replace, but essentially meaningless to this ECU when no DPF is installed

O2 sensor has nothing to with DPF. It's used by the fuel mass observer. That's a system that compensates for drifts in fuelling and air mass.

 

[gusferlizi]

O2 sensor has nothing to with DPF. It's used by the fuel mass observer. That's a system that compensates for drifts in fuelling and air mass.

It does nothing substantial on the 280/320 diesel

I think the DPF will not regen with an active O2 fault

 

[Troutman]

OBD flagged up O2 sensor so I got a new one , it was holding the car in limp mode , came out very easily and was very black and sooty.
I think my whole problem was the fuel pressure sensor but the batwing intake was knackered as well
I binned everything as the two MAF sensors are not removable, they’re moulded into the batwing

 

[gusferlizi]

OBD flagged up O2 sensor so I got a new one , it was holding the car in limp mode , came out very easily and was very black and sooty.
I think my whole problem was the fuel pressure sensor but the batwing intake was knackered as well
I binned everything as the two MAF sensors are not removable, they’re moulded into the batwing

The MAFs are removable up to the 2010 model, but best to replace the whole thing at once. I guarantee the O2 sensor was not keeping it limp. Possibly a rail pressure fault as you said.

Go ahead and replace the crank sensor as well. Those were recalled and superseded twice already. £50 from Mercedes