I was (luckily) just pulling into my driveway when the steering became heavy. Then visit workshop with the battery symbol came up in red on the dash. I'm feeling pretty good about this. It's dark but I know the smell of burning power steering fluid very well https://mbworld.org/forums/clk-class...ering-yay.html Sure enough the garage light reveals white smoke pouring out.

The brown/red fluid is coating everything on the right side of the engine bay and I now have a lake under my car. The power steering pump is on the left side (in case RHD is different) and is perfectly clean. I will check in the weekend but the spatter pattern (thanks dexter) is completely different from my last disaster so hopefully that repair is holding.

I presume my battery light is due to the alternator being completely drenched with power steering fluid? Does anyone know if the alternator might be able to be saved?

 

Car has cooled down now and continued dripping.... and dripping. It is definitely red not brown/yellow. PS fluid reservoir is full and considering many liters have come out (at least 5 I would say), it is definitely transmission fluid. There is a trail from halfway up the driveway into the garage.

Maybe the steering became heavy due to the electrical system shutting down? Sometimes I think about buying a new A160.

 

good luck figuring this one out..sorry to hear about all that loss of fluid

 

Check your trans pan to see if maybe something shot up from the road and damaged the pan . Also check the cooler lines going to the radiator . Do not driver the car as you will burn the transmission .

 

Transmission was just rebuilt by the dealer last month. They are going to flatbed it to the workshop and have a good look. I am concerned about the electronics as much as anything.

 

One of the transmission cooling hoses going into the radiator came out by itself spontaneously. The clip is still seated in there. It was never touched for the transmission fluid flush during the rebuild according to the tech. It needs a new $6 part which is responsible for who knows how many hundred $$ of transmission fluid and labor. I am starting to resent this car. I hope the dealer takes pity.

 

I would make the dealer cover this. In order to remove the transmission, they had to disconnect the cooling lines from the transmission, disconnect the retainers that hold those lines to the frame, and then "carefully" move the lines out of the way to be able to clear the transmission bell housing. I guarantee they were NOT careful, and pulled on the line hard enough to break/dislodge that clip.

 

Thank you for the advice. I will see how it goes. I think I will be lucky if they discount as a compromise. I can't imagine they will admit fault.

 

Yeah, I know. Not sure about the NZ operations, but here in the USA, they are striving for perfect scores on their customer service satisfaction surveys. Poor scores (even in service) can affect the dealer's allocations of new cars and even their profit margins. An actually complaint call to the MBUSA customer service hotline is a huge demerit for them. When I have had issues, that's the first place I go.

 

That's quite interesting. After my last visit I got a call from MB with an out of town calling code asking about the level of service etc. Might be the same scheme. He was saying that they wanted to aim for uniform high levels of service across all dealerships.

 

Hit them where it hurts then! It's unacceptable for them to mess up like that because you took the car to the dealership for the transmission rebuild in the first place so that the job gets done to perfection not so they mess up like that!

All while paying top dollar for it!

I wouldn't let them get away with this and with Rudeney's explanation above about how they must have touched that line, I would confront them and force to cover the entire cost. I bet you they told you they did not touch that line thinking you're just a car noob that will say "oh uhhhh ok".

 

I think I've told this story before, but it fits in with how bad dealer service can be. Right after I bought my CLK (it had 27K miles and was a few months out of warranty), it experienced balance shaft failure (actually, it's just a timing chain idler sprocket on the V8, but same point of failure). MBUSA agreed to cover it under "goodwill" so the dealer did the job.

On the V8's repair, it is not necessary to pull the engine as the sprocket just bolts to the block inside the timing chain cover. However, to get the cover off, you have to remove the oil pan, which requires lifting the engine, which requires doing everything you would do to pull the engine out except disconnecting it from the transmission. Given the very tight working area, it's really best to just go ahead and pull the engine. And this is where the fun began.

When I got the car back, there was a whining noise. They told me that was "normal" and that it would go away as the new parts broke-in. Then, I had some transmission issues, like it slipping between 1-2 and once it totally slipped out of gear. I took it back and suggested that maybe they had not properly checked the fluid level (no fluid or labor for that was on the work order). I was told that this was not necessary as they did not "open" the transmission. However, I knew they disconnected the cooling lines, and if they let the torque converter slip out of the transmission housing, it could leak fluid. The symptoms were exactly that of low fluid, so I demanded a check. Sure enough, they said it need "about a quart or so". Hmm! Oh, and a year later when I changed the transmission fluid, I saw lots of signs of previous fluid spill around the bell housing.

Fast-forward about five years and 50K miles later. The whining sound never went away, and I traced it to the torque converter. Knowing that the 722.9 had some complaints of this, I didn't worry too much and would change fluid every 40K miles. But then, I started hearing this metallic scraping/ticking sound. It really sounded like an engine that has run out of oil, but of course that wasn't the issue. It went on for a few weeks last summer, and then stopped before I had a chance to really investigate. I thought maybe it was in the torque converter, and I'd be doing a fluid change soon anyhow, so I see how dirty it was.

This winter, the noise came back. I definitely isolated it to the torque converter, so assuming it was bad, I bought a rebuilt one and also a transmission fluid pump (knowing those were prone to fail). I pulled the transmission and did that job, also finding a cracked bearing in the front drum of the transmission. But the source of the noise was a cracked flywheel! So, how does a flywheel crack? Well, reading the WIS docs for removing the transmission, there is special attention to be paid to the seating of the torque converter.

This is really hard to explain, but let's just say that getting the transmission and engine mated is not an easy task. The transmission and engine bell housings bolt together as you would expect. The torque converter also bolts to the flywheel inside the bell housing. To start, the torque converter is installed in the transmission bell housing, its shaft aligning in the transmission's front seal, and then it has two notches that alight with two tabs on the fluid pump inside the transmission. When seating the to torque converter, you have to make sure you get its notches aligned with the fluid pump so it drops all the way in. Otherwise, it will sit a few centimeters to high and also not engage the fluid pump.

Once it is seated, you then gently mate the bell housings. There is an access port where you get to the bolts to attach the torque converter to the flywheel. If the torque converter is properly seating in the transmission, and the the the transmission and engine bell housings are properly aligned, it all fits like a glove. if not, there will be a slight space and that's bad. If you try to use the bolts (torque converter to flywheel, or transmission to engine) to "tighten up" this gap, you will do two thing. One, you will put undue stress on the fluid pump, and also bend the flywheel. Of course once the engine is started, the torque converter shaft will most likely snap into place on the fluid pump and everything will then be aligned, but int he mean time, you've stressed two critical pieces.

I did all this with the engine in place and the transmission on an articulating jack so that I could get it position just right. One problem I had was the torque converter kept trying to move forward, out of its seat in the transmission (it just sits there, no attachment is used). To solve this, I used a zip tie through on of the bolt hols (for the flywheel bolts) on the torque converter, then to through the access port opening. This kept it in place while manipulating things. Once I got the transmission in place, it all fit perfectly - a finely machined fit. I cut the zip tie loose and bolted it together and all was well.

Now, imagine the dealer's mechanic, trying to beat the clock, with the engine on a hoist doing all of this. My guess is that the torque converter had slipped out of place, and he just "slammed" the engine back in, pulled it all together with the bolts, and cracked my flywheel. This likely also put extra stress on the sleeve bearing on the transmission fluid pump, and that was the whine that started when it came back. The revise fluid pump has a tapered needle bearing, which is a much better design, though probably still no match for the careless mechanic.

The problem is, there is no way I could go back to my dealer, or even MBUSA and prove any of this. Instead, I just tell the story and highly recommend AGAINST using dealers (especially mine, Crown, a.k.a MB of Birmingham) for any work unless it's absolutely necessary.

 

I have the car back. They did a pretty good job of cleaning it. The electrics appear fine. There is still some fluid sitting on the undercovers but I can degrease that off at some point. We discussed the likely causes and they will get back to me with an invoice. I indicated I was happy to pay discounted consumables (transmission fluid, seal etc) plus tax if they can absorb most of the labor and salvage. Will probably find out tomorrow.

I am on pretty good terms with the dealer (I think), they all know me by face and name. We have had some technical discussions in the past so no noob theories

I have followed your ordeal Rodney, I think this is just one of those things (in my case) and hopefully no other dealers are anything like yours!

On the bright side I haven't washed my car for months as they do it everytime I go in which is very often currently.

 

hopefully everything works out ok for you and and a fair price.

 

Thanks, they finally sent an invoice. It was for less than half the total cost. Also the parts (fluid and a seal) were at wholesale price before halved. I think this is fair. They also collected the car for free.