cleanslate

Hey folks,

I had a ATF fluid leak on my 2001 CLK55 that has roughly 140k. I’ve owned the car for the past 7 years and as far as I know the transmission has never been serviced. I took it to the MB dealer and assumed that it was the conductor plate adapter plug that was leaking (after reading the forums). It drove fine. They updated the conductor plate which they have to drop the valve body and R&R servos to get to the underside of the conductor plate. The tech said that the trans pan was leaking too so they dropped it down and replaced the gasket. They said that the old fluid in it looked fine, it wasn’t burnt and it didn’t have metal shavings in it. They replaced the fluid and reset the transmission and said it was ready ~$700 later. I was able to drive it back to my house a little over 100 miles away without any issues or CEL.

The next morning I was leaving for work and it went into Limp mode with CEL in front of my house. Cycling the key did not fix the issue so I called the dealer who suggested that I call Roadside Assistance to have it towed in. It had to be towed to the closest MB dealer for no charge but it’s the same auto group (though the advisor said it was still a ‘separate entity’). They put me in a rental on the first dealership’s dime and said that if the issue is something that dealer did, then they would cover it but if it’s something else I might be responsible. That was 4 days ago. The advisor told me that the codes are both stored : 4 and 100, and something about Component Y36Y4 and something about it being faults on gears 3 and 4 shift solenoid valve.

As far as I know, it wasn’t throwing those codes when I took it in to the first dealer with but either way, if they worked on the transmission and ‘fixed it’ and this issue came up the next day, would it not be the dealer’s responsibility? Like the repair wasn’t thoroughly tested or it was something they did in the process of the completed repairs?

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UPDATE:

So apparently the tech at the 2nd dealer figured out what was wrong and I got the call yesterday. I'm told that the issue is that my conductor plate is twisted, the pins are bent. Good news because I gather that happened when the 1st dealer was messing with the adapter plug and gasket. My adviser attempted to contact the service manager of dealer 1 who was out on vacation but was back today. He calls and says that they aren't responsible and it's not because of what they did and they aren't going to warranty the work. It's been 16 days since I had it towed in now and my updates have been few and far between and really I've been getting jerked around and playing go between with the two dealers of the same auto group. I'm not going to rant about everything that's been 2nd class with my service but needless to say I'm pissed off and explained to the service manager that I'm not going to be convinced that this new issue doesn't have anything to do with the work they did. I did not have transmission issues besides the leak prior to when I dropped it off. I made it a point to tell him that I'm not interested in paying for this fix and that if I need to contact MBUSA everyday to get this resolved I would. I didn't really let him say much because I've been really busy today but told him that he could leave a message if he needed to reach me later. I just came home to a message saying that he's willing to work with me by splitting the cost of this repair which should be $700-800 but just split it because of the age and mileage of my car. As in, the bent conductor plate is a consequence of having work done on a car with over 100k miles.


I'm not sure why it took 15 days for dealer 2 to diagnose the bad conductor plate when that should have been the first thing they looked at instead of poking around the control unit and whatever else they supposedly did but either way, I feel like dealer 1 is screwing me. Am I or does it make sense that my conductor plate just would "go bad" a day or two after have that transmission work was done?

GatorMB

It sounds like you are PSD..........off. I don't blame you as consumers are smoked out of their house everyday, weather its a cell phone contract or a bundle package from the mortgage or insurance company.
You gotta love it, IT Su!@S
Most Dealership's make a reputable place in the community by offering the service and new car sales to say the least, I really doubt that anyone is trying to rip you off.
The big problem is you have dealer B checking dealer A quality, while business's survive on competitive ratings, The overall repair should have stayed with Dealer A.
Service Managers don't last long trying to promote bad behavior among the brand.
Was it a Yugo or a 100,000 mile plus MB car.
The Conductor plate and leak fix (connector housing) are common for this car, The connector issue sometimes takes out the TCU (transmission control unit). Your leak might have been more severe. I have read about bent prongs in the harness plug and it would have been free most likely from Dealer A but Dealer B had to spend a lot of time to discover it.
You cant buy eggs from store 1 and expect store 2 to know why.

Cheers, Gator