Hello all,

I have the 2014 C300 4Matic Sedan and it will soon be due for 40K mile service.
It will be performed at the dealership, which they are covering the service cost as it was part of the CPO deal.
Does anyone know what type of services will be performed?
And, should I be bringing up any of the issues others might have experience so that the work could be done at the same time under warranty.
Thank you all in advance!

 

Transmission fluid change most importantly. Make sure they drain the torque converter and change the filter, ask to see the old torque converter drain bolt crush washer along with the other gaskets and filter. They will probably throw in a cabin air filter and engine air filters to the service.

 

Maybe also ask if there are any updates for the Transmission Control Unit TCU.

 

Transmission Fluid change isn't until 70K miles on the 2014 C300.

 

Yes that's right. From late 2012-2013 onwards, these cars have the 7G+ transmission which has a 70k miles service interval. The earlier 7G had a 39k miles service interval.

 

True, but some dealers will tell you its a life time fluid and doesn't need replacing.. I would just change it every 39k miles to be safe, 70k miles is a lot for a transmission with 7 clutchs and apparently the blue fluid that replaced the red on the 7g+ is thinner for more efficiency aka less protection, dont quote me on that but I would definitely change it for peace of mind.

 

 

The transmission is the same other then the fluid switch.. Same reason why the engineers say to change the oil every 10 000 miles but who actually follows that if they plan on keeping the car for a long time? If you plan on replacing the car in a few year then go ahead and do what the manufacture tells you to do, note that those intervals are only good for the warranty period, after that you're on your own and the engineers don't care for anything after the warranty so you be the judge. Cars nowadays are designed to fail right around when the warranty ends so you go trade it in for the latest model instead of fixing it.

 

 

 

... or 7 years!

 

" Cars nowadays are designed to fail right around when the warranty ends so you go trade it in for the latest model instead of fixing it."

I just find that impossible to believe. If that were true buyers would quickly migrate to other brands. Cars today have never been more reliable and people keep them longer than ever before. I read something a while back, I think it was on Autotrader, that said that on average people keep a new car about 6 years and the average age of cars on the road is over 11 years. So if cars were designed to fail after the warranty period there would be a ton of unhappy used car buyers. Engines and transmissions last longer than ever before. It used to be cars that had 100K miles were pretty much done and rusting away.

Manufacturers spend multi millions/billions on R&D and relaibility. Now, is every part on every car as robust as it could be? Not likely, as every car is built to a price point and to appeal to different buyers. And because of weight, cost, emmisions, space, etc. compromises have to be made on every design and manufacturers have to balance all that out. But general quality and overall reliability keep getting better and better all the time. I personally don't think buying a used car that has just come off of warranty as being bad. Think about it; when a car is under warranty, when every squeak, rattle or niggling issue comes up people take it to the dealer to fix. I look at it that by the end of the warranty if that specific car had any issues that came from the factory they have been fully sorted by then and not likley to repeat, so you have a pretty good chance to get a reliable vehicle if everything else checks out.

 

That is very false, im not saying a car will explode once its out off warranty but the materials they use on new cars and some designs are just deemed to fail well before 200k miles.The more time goes on, the more cars become this way, its the beginning of a sad future for cars, life time fluids are just the start.

They are moving away from modular parts and instead are making everything non serviceable. just look at the new inline 6 mercedes engines that are coming out, water pump, alternator, power steering pump..all non serviceable components that are integrated into the block.. Its cheaper for them to produce that way and harder to service so like I said, no point of fixing it, you ust buy a new one. This alread started with most parts, no one fixes anything anymore, they just replace it.

Cars will be as disposable as phones one day, tell me, do you fix your phone or service it? Once the screen cracks or a component fails and its already 2-3 years old, most people will just go get the latest version instead of fixing it, cars will be the same.

 

You just said they were designed to fail just after the warranty ends. Now you are saying "well below 200K". That is a big difference. I would say that parts are designed to have an expected useful life of X before one would normally expect them to fail or wear out. X could be number of starts for a fuel pump, number of door activations before the locking mechansim fails, number of ingress/egress from a seat before showing a certain amount of wear, etc. Depending on how well those things are taken care of/maintained/serviced, the environment they are used in or maybe just plain luck or a lot of other factors things fail sooner or could last for years and years past their useful life. With all the electronics used today, new materials, along with advanced manufacturing processes and stricter quality controls things are more reliable than ever before. Are they absolutely, positively as reliable and long lasting as they could be, of course not. Reasons being to bullet proof something if could get way more expensive than someone would pay, could be too heavy to be able to meet ever rising MPG standards, might be too big too package effectively, and on and on. I really doubt cars are designed to wear out so that owners are forced to come into the showroom sooner.

I never had a cell phone fail and if it would I would probably get a new one. I have always gotten a new phone because new ones that came out had so many new or improved features that I wanted to change. And I would guess that most people are like that. And I think that is not uncommon in the car world as well. Some people get a new/used/different car just because they want something different even though their car is perfectly fine. Others, like me had a 10 year old car that still had a lot of useful life left, but had 165K miles and some things were starting to wear out and needing to be replaced. I had the car almost seven years and just wanted something different with additional features/technology that newer cars have. Yes, it is definitely harder for a backyard mechanic to service their cars or to replace parts because of all the electronics and how tightly things are packaged today. On the other hand, there are less people that even want to work on their own cars than there used to be, but then again part of that could be cars are so much more reliable than years ago. Yes, we live in a disposable culture with short attention spans. Now, is that a good or bad thing can certainly be debated. On the other hand, years ago oil needed to be changed every 1,000 miles, tuneups needed to be done every 10,000 and cars rusted through after five years, but you could eassily work on them at home if you wnated. I don't know that I would want to go back to those days.

 

 

I have a 2013 C250 W204 and my manual states that at 40K, the brake fluid should be flushed thoroughly to each brake, the transmisison fluid flushed including replacing the overflow cap inside the pan, transmission filter, magnet, pan bolts and gasket all should be replaced, AND the rear differential should be flushed too.
So if my car states to have this done, I'd suspect yours should be similar. But of course, check your owners manual or the maintenance manual your car came with. if you don't have it, then you can get it from online just google for it.
ALSO... you might want to have a carbon build up cleaning done on your cylinder heads and intake valves as well. 40K miles would have built up a good amount of carbon by now and you'd not want to let that get out of control by waiting until 100,000 miles and then they have to rip apart your engine to manually scrub your parts.