C 320 CDI OM642, known issues
S204 · 2008–2011 · R3 Demands diligence
Recorded issues14
Walk-away0
Over €1,0005
Checkable at viewing10/14
Likely spend€5,000
Likely spend is the mid cost of every issue rated common or universal, added together, what an unmaintained example owes over the next few years, not a prediction for any one car. Worst case if everything here failed at once is €13,400, which isn't a realistic scenario but is a useful ceiling.
All issues, by system
Engine
Oil weeping down the back of the block, burning smell, oil in the valley beneath the intake. The oil cooler sits in the vee under the intake manifold and its seals harden with age. Access requires the intake off, so labour dominates the bill.
Check: Look down the back of the engine with a torch for wet oil and fresh cleaning. A suspiciously spotless engine bay on a 200,000 km V6 deserves a question.
Emissions
Warning light, limp mode, oil level rising above the maximum mark from fuel dilution. The filter needs sustained hot running to regenerate. A car used for short urban trips never completes a regeneration cycle.
Check: Read the DPF soot load and the distance since the last regeneration on a scan tool, and check the engine oil level and smell it for diesel. Ask what the car was used for. A short-trip city diesel is the wrong car regardless of mileage.
Coolant loss with no visible external leak, white smoke, sweet smell. The EGR cooler cracks internally and leaks coolant into the intake. BMW recalled affected diesels over a fire risk from glycol deposits igniting.
Check: Check coolant level and look for unexplained top-ups in the service history. Verify the recall was carried out. It's free and searchable by VIN.
Suspension
Knocking over bad surfaces, vague or wandering steering, uneven front tyre wear, steering shimmy under braking. The front lower arm bushings are a known wear item on this chassis and go well before the ball joints.
Check: Drive over a rough road at low speed with the windows down and listen. Check the inside edges of the front tyres for feathering.
Harsh ride, vibration at speed, slow punctures. Stiff-sidewall run-flats transmit impacts straight into the rim, and these alloys crack rather than bend.
Check: Inspect the inner rim edge of every wheel for cracks and hairline splits, not just the face for kerbing. Budget for a set of conventional tyres; most owners switch and the ride improves markedly.
Knock from the rear over speed bumps, a hollow thump from the boot area. The rubber mounts perish. On hard-used cars the mount can crack the surrounding turret metal, which is a far bigger job.
Check: Lift the boot floor and look at the top of the shock towers for cracking or a lifted mount. Listen for a knock over bumps.
Transmission
Harsh, delayed or jerky shifts, holding a gear then banging the next in, and limp mode, often with speed-sensor or gear-ratio fault codes. The speed sensors in the conductor plate (mechatronic) fail, and/or the external 13-pin connector leaks fluid that wicks up the wiring into the control unit. Early units are the most affected.
Check: Test-drive through every gear cold and warm. Scan the transmission, and pull the external 13-pin plug to check for fluid on the pins.
Body & corrosion
Bubbling at the rear arch lip, scaling on subframe mounting points and rear suspension components. Age plus road salt. This generation isn't a notorious rotter, but nothing from 2005–2013 is immune in a salted market.
Check: Put it on a lift and look at the rear subframe mounting points and the arch lips from behind. Largely a non-issue on cars from southern Europe, a real one on northern and Baltic cars.
Electrical
Headlights, indicators, windows, wipers and central locking stop working at once, usually right after a battery change or a jump start. The module's memory corrupts when supply voltage dips. It is the single most common electrical failure on this generation.
Check: Test every window, both mirrors, the wipers, all exterior lights and the central locking before you drive. If any cluster of these is dead, this is why.
Black screen, rebooting, refusal to read the drive, non-functioning navigation. The early CCC unit's hard drive and mainboard fail with age. Later CIC units are more reliable.
Check: Turn it on and use it for a few minutes: navigation, radio, settings. Reboots during that window are the fault showing itself.
Random electrical faults, warning lights that come and go, a battery that dies again within a year. The car's power management must be told a new battery was fitted. Cheap replacements are routinely fitted without coding, which then overcharges or undercharges the new battery.
Check: Ask when the battery was changed and whether it was registered. A car with a new battery, no registration and a scatter of odd electrical faults usually just needs coding.
Drivetrain
Grinding or binding at low-speed full lock, 4x4 warning lights, a shudder when manoeuvring. The actuator motor and the transfer case's internal chain wear, especially on cars run with mismatched tyre sizes.
Check: Full-lock circles in both directions in a car park, slowly, listening for binding. Check all four tyres are the same brand and wear, mismatched tyres destroy these.
Turbo & intake
Limp mode and power loss, usually with fault code P2015 stored. The actuator motor that drives the intake-port shut-off flaps in the manifold fails, frequently after being shorted by oil dripping from the turbo-inlet seal above it; the flaps or linkage can also seize.
Check: Scan for P2015 and related intake codes; a car that has thrown it before is likely to again unless the oil-leak cause was addressed.
Cooling
Coolant smell after a drive, slow unexplained loss of coolant, crusty residue around the tank seams. The plastic tank goes brittle with age and splits, usually at a seam or around the level sensor.
Check: Look at the tank with the engine warm, dried coolant leaves a white or pink crust. Cheap to fix, but it tells you how the car has been maintained.
How to read this
Every issue is authored once against the part that actually carries it: the engine, the gearbox, the chassis or a shared component, and inherited by every variant that has that part. The badge next to each issue says where it comes from, so you can tell an OM642 problem from an E9x problem.
Evidence tiers. Manufacturer means a recall, technical bulletin or revised part number. Documented means workshop data or multiple independent sources. Reported means owner consensus with no hard confirmation, and never sets a risk level on its own.