Torque converter fluid not being flushed at service!
 

So I finally lost it.

Let's see what MB comes back at me with.

Email: (from me to Visa Concierge and Mercedes Benz Contacts at MB corporate in Canada). I attached the WIS that I found in the threads on this forum indicating that step #6 involves draining TQ fluid.

Email:

Can you please contact MB Oakville and MB Mississauga and refer them to the attached?

As per guidance from Mercedes Benz, they are to drain the torque converter fluid as part of the 60,000km service. (step 6).

I have CC’d Mercedes as well. [name withheld]– you had emailed me in 2015 accidently when another customer contacted you. I’m reaching out to you due to my utter frustration with this issue. I hope you can help.

I find it ridiculous that dealerships in the Greater Toronto Area are not following their own prescriptive guidance on transmission fluid flushes. Dealerships are telling me they don’t replace the torque converter fluid on a transmission change on W204 C classes. This is clearly against Mercedes SOP which is attached.

Can MB Canada corporate please give me some guidance here? Why am I running into dealers left right and center who refuse to replace the transmission fluid in the torque converter? By simply draining the transmission fluid and not draining the TC fluid means the new fluid is contaminated with the old fluid.

Thanks,
[withheld]

From: Visa Infinite Concierge [mailto:concierge@visainfiniteconcierge.ca]
Sent: March 24, 2017 5:48 PM
To:
Subject: Information Regarding Your Car Repair Services

http://concierge.my.salesforce.com/s...180V00000MED5b

My commentary:

I'm pretty pissed at Mercedes for this bullcrap their dealers are pulling with us as customers. If the SOP is to drain the fluid in the TQ, then drain the fluid! :crazy:

Well done, keep at them. John.

Good on ya. I just go to indy shops. I don't trust the dealer.

Keep up the fire!

I should send the same letter about MB Regina. They did not flush mine either.


had me down for about 7 litres of fluid and it should be around 9.


Where are the other 2 litres of dirty fluid? Inside my bloody transmission that is where.

Please provide a link to the WIS document and I'll attach it to my e-mail as well.


I can't seem to find it.

I've loaded the WIS here: http://docdro.id/6nuRjXB

My vehicle is under extended warranty. There is a good indy here, but I'm worried that if they mess something up that MB will say that it wasn't done at an approved shop and then i'm SOL with my tranny.

Valid concern?

I do not know about your laws but here in Australia we can have independents service our vehicles without voiding warranties so long as OEM filters & the correct fluids are used.

Choose a workshop who does the proceedure often to avoid any **** ups.

The main issue is that no one here in the greater Toronto Area seems to do this often.

I'm left with a trusted indy shop who has admitted they don't do this on a regular basis and TWO MB dealers who also admit they don't do this.

They're all willing to give it a go though...

Indy wants $250 in labour
Dealer A which is meh wants $270 in labor
Dealer B which I get along with and know a few SA's wants $320.

What would you do?

For peace of mind I would go with the dealer you like, after all it is only an extra $50/$70 ( say it quickly!!) .

You may be able to negotiate it down a little if you say that you will buy spares & have more services from them.

Peace of mind? From dealers that admit they cut corners?:crazy: my indy shops will take me back there to show me things and also to let me peek at their projects. Last time, they asked me where I put the torque converter inspection plug (little rubber plug that doesn't do much). I hadn't touched it. So I guess it fell off somewhere. They let me see how dark my fluid was. I trust indy shops way more.

OP, as far as warranty, I get it. It's nice to have the maintenance record and ease of stuff for warranty work. As stated above, as long as you have receipts for the maintenance, they can't deny your warranty claims. But as I said, I understand your reasoning.

Interested to know the outcome ?.

As stated above, you could always wait at the workshop door & see the job being done .I would seeing there is so much distrust . At very least ask about the process ie drain plug or flush.

I was unaware the torque converter fluid can be changed on its own or am I missing something? I assumed it is done when the transmission since I thought the fluid is changed as the torque converter and transmission are connected and share the same fluid?

On the W204 vehicle, there is a drain plug in the TQ. If you do not explicitly drain the TQ, there is quite a bit of liquid there. So when you put in the tranny fluid you're mixing old and new fluid, thus defeating the point of the service.

My dealership did not do this. So annoying.

So now what? Another tranny service just to make things right? I have been bothered by this ever since I noticed only 7 L of transmission fluid used instead of 9 on the invoice.

Mercedes Benz corporate called this morning at 930am EST. Unfortunately I missed his call. Called him and left a vm.

I should have news later on today. Tardy response IMHO, but I did appreciate that they are reaching out.

I'll share more news once I have them. Thanks for your patience

Ok, so news. 43 minute phone call discussion for this tranny flush issue and another concern I had. Had an excellent discussion from a knowledgeable person.

So to summarize. Mercedes corporate looked into this issue and inquired with three different dealerships where I live. As I found out, none of them explicitly follow step 6 in the WIS and do not train fluid in the TQ.

Here is what I was told.

Early models of the W204 body may not have a drain plug for the TQ. Some did, and some did not. Later models should have a drain plug for the TQ, but they cannot confirm or deny if mine does despite running my VIN into the system.

They have not seen cases where a simple drain and fill without pulling the drain plug on the TQ has caused any issues. It is their belief that by just doing a regular tranny drain and fill that it's in fact OK as the end result of putting in new fluid and having that mix with what's left in the TQ is more than adequate.

That being said.

They were shocked that I pulled the WIS (and I explained where I got it from after I was asked), and they are in fact following up with dealerships because they should very well be following the guidance in the WIS. I explained that this is a systemic issue in US/Canada as per member comments here. We know that they are not because they tell us they aren't draining the TQ explicitly and that the amount put back into the tranny is less than what it should be (as fluid remains in the TQ).

Anyway, that was their explanation to me. They offered to look into helping with my drain and fill, but ultimately they did suggest that if there wasn't a drain plug that one possible solution would be to drain and fill twice.

From a cost standpoint I think that's prohibitive (for me). My plan of action to them is...

When it's time - pull the drain plug in the TQ and replace the fluid if my TQ does have a drain plug, and if it doesn't, to do a regular service as they're used to.

My main concern was....-why am I being charged more for a transmission fluid drain and fill if I want the TQ fluid drain and filled as well? That doesn't seem morally right to me - it's like paying for an oil change and then being charged extra to evacuate another 1L of fluid. -and they did understand where I was coming from here.

All in all, I'm pleased with their response and their explanation. They will be following up with the dealerships I have identified, and it is my hope they follow up nationally.

My other question I brought up is why are Canadian W204 oil changes 20,000km and US W204 oil changes 15,000km (10,000 miles) after the US dropped their oil change intervals from 15k to 10k. I didn't like the original response that I got (market specific, etc.) so I believe he's going to dig into to it further.

209.5 oil is 209.5 oil and our engines in the US/Canada are the same. It doesn't make sense to me that there's two different intervals for oil changes.

Nonetheless, he did bring up a good point that for both concerns, it's not like they're seeing massive problems with their guidance. I wanted to say something along the lines of "most of your customers own a car for 4 years and then punt it." or "most of your customers are clueless when it comes to cars", but I left it because I think we all know that :)

If anybody has any additional concerns/questions about this, I'll try to summarize them in an email and send that back to him. Again, I'm happy with the response given my query but if I've managed to save one tranny because of spending my time to discuss this with corporate, then I've made my own day :)

So how do you fill it when you have an empty transmission?

S.A.P.

You have not mentioned the other option of refreshing ALL of the oil by doing a transmission flush.

I can do it with my 5 speed ATM & have seen the process on earlier 7 speeds. The transmission is drained & pan cleaned,filter replaced then new oil is added , a return pipe is removed , the engine is started & the oil oil flushed from the TC. You should find the process on this site.

The drain plug option is only one method & the easier one by far.

Car is still under warranty. Last thing I want to do is to do something like a tranny flush which isn't something that is documented in the WIS AFAIK and certainly not something that is done on a regular basis.

MB corporate did mention about doing a drain and fill twice in a row...

Too expensive. I would consider that a "flush" for all intents and purposes.

I told MB that I'm now following their guidance and I want them to note that I have gone to wits end to follow MB guidance. If I ever have a tranny issue and they point to something to do with how I've approach this 60k km service, I'll be sure to tell them that I've done my best.

Regarding draining twice, for anyone who is interested, I have the robust 5 speed transmission without a TC drain plug.The car is almost 10 years old with nearly 100,000 kms.

The way I have serviced my ATM is :-

At 50,000 km I changed out the oil & filter cleaning the pan & magnet.
After another 4 years & the odometer reading 94,000 km I changed the oil & filter again but this time changing the oil twice. After calculations this meant that 76% of the oil was changed with the oil in ATM being cherry pink.
The regime I follow now is that drop the ATM oil out each 12 months when changing the engine oil & drop the pan & change the filter & clean pan & magnet at the recommended 4 years.
I am hoping the car will give me trouble free service for 15 to 20 years. It will probably last longer that the driver.

Just for interests sake I noticed that a lot more oil is drained from the transmission if the drain plug is left out overnight say 15 hours & if the transmission oil is at operating temp ie 80'C when the drain plug is removed. No doubt this increases the % of new oil.