the car was idle and gear in P.. when i changed the gear from P to N to D the car kind of 'jerked' for every change.. what could have caused this? i turned off the car.. waited for about a minute and started/drove and haven't happened (again). there is no check engine light or messages,etc.

 

You likely have a bad conductor plate. Very common on the 7G equipped C-Classes, which your car has.

The clunk was caused by your car going into limp mode, for an implausible signal from the speed sensor. By turning the car off and restarting your are resetting the TCM, so the transmission goes back to normal operation. This will likely continue to happen and get more frquent, and likely end up throwing codes, or being permanently in limp mode.

Only option for fixing it is going to the dealer and having them replace the conductor plate at ~$1000-1200. You can't have an independent shop or even DIY, as the conductor plates can only be procured by a dealer with authorization by MB to replace it.

 

From my indy, he said Mercedes stop replacing conductor plates alone because people still come back with the problem. So they conclude that your transmission is wonky.

What's the % of conductor fixing this problem? It sucks that people spend $1500 and the problem might still occur. Also, there are conductor plates for w203 on eBay! LOL not sure if it's legit.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1994-2011-MB...#ht_754wt_1037

Last time I checked, they sold a lot. It claims to be made by genuine Mercedes.

 

Actually, it is more opposite than that. MB used to replace the valve body, until they came to the realization that most failures were the conductor plate and not the valve body, at least on the 722.9's that are in the C-Class. Earlier 722.9's, like in the E-class had valve body issues as well.

There have been several on the forum that have had conductor plate replacement on their 722.9, and that resolved the problem. The 722.6 had conductor plate problems too.

The Ebay auction you linked is for the 722.6 transmission and not the 722.9.

 

+1^

 

i also have symptoms of the car not accelarating enough at times.. i'm almost paid off with this car and i wanted to keep it for my daughter to use.. it just sucks that once i get this paid off, the expenses are coming up.. it's like it has a timebomb of sorts that it knows you are almost paid off :-(

i had the car appraised at carmax last night for $11k (the car is at 74k miles).. is it a fair deal?

thanks for all your info and help

 

Depending on the condition of the exterior and interior you can get much more than that. I paid, 19k for my 07 2 years ago. Black on Black (9.5/10 interior and exterior), with the regular radio/phone system (not set up), AMG package, 61k miles. I also went to carmax today and they appraised it at 8500, only difference between when I bought it and today is 44k miles I've put on it..

 

don't be too down on the dumps! my problem started appearing at 39k miles. although it hasn't been getting stuck lately. i would like to take it to carmax to see the appraisal, but the support beam is aligned. i'm not too sure if that would take a dramatic dip in the offer. it's almost at 47,000 now.

** i wouldn't mind getting the conductor plate switched out, but i don't want to risk losing $1500 just to find out it doesn't solve the problem.. although i left my car at my indy and he drove it while it was attached to the computer (too see what part is failing), he said the conductor plate was the problem. he called his buddies at the dealers and they said our models usually have conductor problems around 70k and that since mine is around 40k, it might be a bad transmission.

decisions! should i just sell the car outright for 11,000 or risk a $1,500 fix that may or may not fix it. if the fix doesn't work, my indy said he was willing to wipe out the codes out of the history so I can go trade it in at a dealer. he doesn't think replacing the whole transmission is worth it.

 

I have 100K on my 07 and have had the dreaded speed sensor error once which caused the limp mode about 20K miles ago. It hasn't happened since, but it is definitely the conductor plate issue. I haven't quite decided what to do if it happens again, but so far all the conductor plate replacements I have seen on the forum have fixed the issues with no return problems. I talk to my local dealer lead tech quite often, and he said they haven't had a car return yet when they replaced the conductor plate with the revised one.

 

man we are at the same boat on this one..i'm looking for a c63 or an m3 (but that's for a different thread).. the problem is, my wife mostly drives this car now and i don't want her to get stuck in the street when something happens to the car..

it sucks that the part is exclusive for dealerships only.. i found an indy shop that specializes on transmission but then it'll probably end up close to the cost if i take this to the dealership.

i'm reading some other threads about a class action suit concerning this issue (or similar re: 06-07 transmissions), i didn't follow on that yet (but i don't want to wait if that's still in the process); some guys paid close to $5k just to get the transmission problems sorted out (but then again, some other problem(s) may come out) - with that cost, it's hard to justify keeping this car for the long haul

 

has anyone tried this: https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq/index.cfm

 

The sad part about this is a lot of owners went ahead and got their conductor plate fixed with the dealership and paying up front on the cost.

$5000 seems to be the earlier cost and as it gets worst and more cars having this problem, the cost seems to drop as lots of people are complaining to the dealership. Although, they admit no fault and the problem occurs usually after the warranty is over. Owners ends up paying for the costs.

It is sad that Mb decides to call exclusive on repair of this part that is widely affecting mostly on the 7g transmission. Since there are so many cars with this issue and it's obviously where the problem lay, I don't know why they are keep quiet on this. Perhaps tryinig to do damage control on the situation? and at the same time, get the owners to pay for their defective part? Regardless, if it's their vendor who manufacture this or not, I believe it's MB to amend this issue and take ownership since they are the ones who approved to install this crap in their car to start with. Seriously someone from quality and control had dropped the ball on this one without fully testing this part out throughly. Perhaps it didn't run an endurance test?? Or longivity? I don't believe this part is a wear and tear part, eg brake pads. If they want to treat it as that, that is just plain wrong. Either way, what are the coincident that it dies around 80k mileage of usage? Question is, does MB acknowledge the life of this part? Or did they hush hush about it with the vendor and look forward to the customer paying money for this fix with the tech. If not, why would the made this fix exclusive to MB dealership? I don't believe a word about them doing this exclusive to obtain data to build a case with the vendor. Even if they won, then what? Are they going to reimburse all the owners that did the fix earlier?? I dobut it. If not, then what else are they doing with all this data and how long are they going to keep doing this??? Until every car is fix?? And at the car owners expense while they get a bonus from a lawsuit with the vendor???

This is all BS to me at this time of what MB is doing. They should clean up their act and fix this piece of crap, as a Campaign. I don't understand why it is not done as a recall yet. Perhaps no one got hurt yet? I still believe this is a saftey issue as it has a potential chace of it being fully disable at a wrong location or time. Also, I don't think getting a limp mode without any warning other than the car don't seem to change gears is good. Although a stored code is there, but no CEL to warn the driver is not good either. For those who are not mechanically incline, would they continue to drive and push the car when this happens? How would they know that they need to reset the car by turning off the car for a temporary fix? Won't this high rev at a stuck low gear cause other engine wear and tear issues and does a premature damage to the car engine parts?

The more I look at this, the more problems this conductor plate brings and I believe MB should correct their defective part regardless whatever argument they have with their vendors. I believe they are totally responsible for this part since it's a part they approved to put in their car and sold in whole to the customer who paid and in understanding that this should function normally and not as a wear and tear part. Actaully wear and tear is not even a good term to describe this, since the part does not mechanically used but more of an electronic part. For some reason, it does have an end of life on it, which does not make sense for a transmission part and at 80k. Which is way too young? Car on average will be at 7 years old. Should this part be as duriable as the transmission parts? But to have a mass fail at 80k seems odd and fishy. As though, there is a end of life timer, and oh, that reminds, a product that is similar to that is like the laser toners which has fuses to blow up after 80,000 pages of usage.

Now speaking of the conductor plate, I also notice another part that has this same resemblence of failure. The pulleys. Seems to fail like clock works at a certain mileage. Is this wear and tear too?