Photo: taytos/LiveLeak/Edited by autoevolution
If Janis Joplin had written her famous "Mercedes Benz" a cappella song after watching the following video it probably could have had some slightly-tweaked lyrics, some which we took the liberty of pasting over the screenshot above.
In the video below you will see exactly what happens when a modern diesel engine encounters a very rare and rather dangerous problem that is commonly known as a “diesel runaway” condition.
The video was recorded by a biker who ran into a huge cloud of smoke while riding on the M4 motorway towards Heathrow Airport, in the United Kingdom.
Somewhat surprisingly, he appears to have been the only person to stop and check out what is going on at the source of the smoke, which was actually coming from a rather rare Mercedes-Benz C-Class SportCoupe (C203).
The Mercedes-Benz, which seems to be either a 200 CDI or a 220 CDI model, is revving like never before in its life and unleashing a huge cloud of white smoke from the exhaust, with the terrified owner not being able to turn it off.
Fortunately, the good samaritan bike rider knows that the engine is now a runaway and advises the Benz owner to find somehow block the air intake, as that is pretty much the surest way in which it can be stopped from welding its pistons shut through lack of oil lubrication.
Diesel engine runaways, for example modern turbocharged ones, can get into this hazardous condition because of oil contamination from the turbocharger, which can sometime have a ball bearing failure and start sending oil into the air intake.
Once that happens, the engine starts revving like crazy and an almost uninterruptible cycle starts, with the only two ways of shutting it down being either to block the air intake or to engage a higher gear with the brake depressed and then letting the clutch abruptly.
We don't know if the car was a manual or an automatic, but that 2.1-liter engine is certainly good for scraps until we get to the end of the video, as neither the car's owner nor the bike rider know how to locate the air intake in time. Nasty stuff!
The video was recorded by a biker who ran into a huge cloud of smoke while riding on the M4 motorway towards Heathrow Airport, in the United Kingdom.
Somewhat surprisingly, he appears to have been the only person to stop and check out what is going on at the source of the smoke, which was actually coming from a rather rare Mercedes-Benz C-Class SportCoupe (C203).
The Mercedes-Benz, which seems to be either a 200 CDI or a 220 CDI model, is revving like never before in its life and unleashing a huge cloud of white smoke from the exhaust, with the terrified owner not being able to turn it off.
Fortunately, the good samaritan bike rider knows that the engine is now a runaway and advises the Benz owner to find somehow block the air intake, as that is pretty much the surest way in which it can be stopped from welding its pistons shut through lack of oil lubrication.
Diesel engine runaways, for example modern turbocharged ones, can get into this hazardous condition because of oil contamination from the turbocharger, which can sometime have a ball bearing failure and start sending oil into the air intake.
Once that happens, the engine starts revving like crazy and an almost uninterruptible cycle starts, with the only two ways of shutting it down being either to block the air intake or to engage a higher gear with the brake depressed and then letting the clutch abruptly.
We don't know if the car was a manual or an automatic, but that 2.1-liter engine is certainly good for scraps until we get to the end of the video, as neither the car's owner nor the bike rider know how to locate the air intake in time. Nasty stuff!
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