Merc OM603 engines?

[Pskhaat]

Can anyone give me the skinny on the Mercedes OM603 engines? Supposedly they had some issues, but I can't quite tell from my reading if it was considered necessarily a ubiquitously bad thing. e.g. cyl heads went bad due to heat build up from the oxidizer traps? Was this rare or common?

 

[snyder.hunter]

Can anyone give me the skinny on the Mercedes OM603 engines? Supposedly they had some issues, but I can't quite tell from my reading if it was considered necessarily a ubiquitously bad thing. e.g. cyl heads went bad due to heat build up from the oxidizer traps? Was this rare or common?

they make great power and are quite reliable, but are not as reliable as the 5 cylinder OM617 turbodiesel engine. There is also the issue of cylinder number 6 getting improper cooling if the cooling system is not up to specification. I've heard this 3 times, but I only know more about the 617 - I've had three of them, two non turbo and one turbo and they were all amazingly wonderful.

Hunter