MBUSA just told me that their cars, including c36's, dont need to have their transmissions serviced....including transmission oil changes! opinions

that's a myth
should change it from time to time
don't know exact miles
but every 60k-90k should be trouble free

thanks... even every 60-90k sounds good to me!

We tell our customer 50k mile changes! You must change the fluid or the tranny will die after 85,000 - 110,000.

thanks...any recommends on what tranny fluids to use?

i would recommend taking your car to a reputable service mechanic. the main reason being, when you replace the tranny oil, you should also replace the tranny filter and to do that, you will have to remove the tranny oil pan. here's the problem, alot of people over tighten the tranny oil pan nuts and ruins the seal. when that happens, you will have a forever leaking tranasmission and might end up buying a new tranny oil pan. also to do a full flush, you should also drain out the torque converter. however, if you feel competent enough, just make sure you torque the pan nuts correctly and i also recomend doing a cross pattern when you are tightening. i dont know what the torque spec would be.

This is all pretty easy, as long as you don't use brute force. I think for the later models the fluid has to be checked at a certain temp with a special tool, and you have to buy a dipstick (since the new ones don't have them) to check. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that is what I remember reading. Lucky for me I don't have to worry about all that with my 1994 c280. Mines a pretty easy job. Not to change the fluid for the life of the car is crazy. Unless you like your tranmissions to have short lives.

thanks guys... but i planned on having a mechanic service my car... and i already changed the tranny fluid at 50k. BUT the dealer is telling me that i may cause damage to my tranny by chagning the fluid cause it is a self filtering sytem and a sealed transmission that will only be ruined by touching it. that sounded fishy and a little scary, thats why i asm asking the pro's!

I would use the MB tranny fluid even though it is over 15 bucks a quart at my dealer. It might be a rip off or actually is some special stuff, but I wouldn't take a chance even using something from Redline unless I was absolutely sure something else was ok to use.

50k for a change is also what I have read in some articles with AMG techs.

I'm changing mine later today. I gave up and bought gasket, filter, little red saftey catch,... at the ....ership. Can't wait to see what it looks like. 56K and you folks got me nervous

Dammit 75k and i need to do one, and moebuisgold came to my house a few days ago and pointed out a melted tranny cap? weird yah i think so!!!

hey jnolte, i think they have tranny caps for like around a buck, they also sell a dip stick tool to check the level of the tranny fluid.

I got my oil done. It looked terrible. The pan was relatively clean and I could see some crap in the filter. I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed.:o

moebius

did it smell burned at all??????

It smelled a little bad It was brownish black, that's what has me nervous.