Lmao… as a “OG” may as well finish the thread… to the jump I brought my car in for some routine maintenance to a “reputable” shop. As a tech, service advisor and salesman as well as retired naval technician I provided all parts and detailed order to complete work. They were soo sketchy about quotes etc. was told 3 days. For 3 weeks I was getting the run around and getting them parts…. Car has an “issue” needs a new driveshaft is going to be another 3 weeks and 3 grand lmao. Take my car do all posted. Never would I ever have thought it would be the cats.
was solid on trans shudder so much went ahead and bought a pneumatic fluid extractor as my genuine trans pan from Benz’s drain plug was welded to the pan… lmao. Fuchs and pentosin suck. Went with 3 swaps of valvoline max life atf. After gutting both rear cats. Def could tell right cat was bad and found upper 02 sensor loose…
removed and gutted right upper cat and….. baby we back!!!!!! She rides brand new. She’s a bad *****. Gonna drop $10k on her. Best part…. No CEL only have one cat now but car may be tuned? As she does 160

 

Realization… he must have hammered the **** out of the exhaust to get it off for driveshaft knocking cats loose. There is pieces of thin metal in the cats for some reason that will cause “rattling” but I have a w209 with 85k experiencing a similar vibration.
fwiw BMW’s suck

 

I have the same issue with the 37mpg to 46mph vibration and I need help figuring it out because I don’t wanna throw a bunch of parts of this thing.

my car is a 2002 CLK55 designo coupe with 144k miles

 

feel you. Any work was done? Or it just started happening…

 

bought the car 3 months ago and it’s been happening ever since. It has the same issues you mentioned like literally 19mph and 35-45mph vibrations. Car did have work done to front suspension like bilstein B8 shocks and I replaced steering damper. I had the car up on the lift today and put in drive and speed to the vibration point and it vibrates way worse when it’s in the air. My mechanic didn’t notice anything out of line apart from my exhaust rubbing on the drive shaft but it only needed a new hanger. My motor mounts are starting to go but trans mount is in great shape.

 

Get your motor mounts done and report back.

Creative steel sells lifetime replacements or you can stick with oem through FCP

- Joe

 

vibration coming from trans? And mainly felt in steering wheel?

 

lol… possibly most updated thread in MBWorld history…
3 1/2 year/ 12k miles later really wish I had paid attention to this thread rather than listen to tech who performed work…
If doing any work on transmission highly recommend dealing with very experienced Benz shop.

difficult to say if it was doing a drain/refill @ 192k miles probably on original fluid or technician under/overfilling trans fluid created issues…

regardless.. throughout this process upgraded/replaced many parts.. so entirely frustrating… 😂😂 Hope to have a completely smooth example one day!

the most difficult part of addressing this issue was maintaining straight/flat speed of 35-45 where I previously was.

originally it was bad!! Biggest difference maker was sucking out/refilling fluid approx 10-15 quarts and possibly changing to maxlife ATF.

vibration @ 42 started to get very annoying as I now drive on straight flat roads at this speed. Because of this I was really able to match that it was connected to shift points. “Resetting” trans helped a little but vibration started moving around 45/46 mph.
plan was to drop trans and replace TC…

figured I’d give her some tough love before this.. started taking her through the gears “manually” down to 2/3. Going up a hill from 35-50 in 2nd not sure what happened but something doing this caused a slight improvement…

finally decided it was 100% trans…

ended up doing 4 oz of lubeguard shutter fix and 10oz lubeguard platinum.

originally.. it may have made a slight difference… but biggest change was feeling of shifts… felt SO much better. Did about 100 miles highway/street driving. 19mph shudder was greatly reduced… cruising between 38-45 was great! Only vibrations really felt while powering through these points…

plan was to throw the creative steel poly trans bushing expecting it to make things worse…

well… have to say I’m quite confident THIS TIME 😂 it is 99% better…

pretty sure 19mph vibration is completely gone.. along with shudder while accelerating through gears.

if you reread thread I probably replaced the stock trans bushing atleast 2-3x.

while the one I took out was in absolutely great condition… it may just be too ****ty… (lemfoerder)
Especially with black series engine mounts and tune etc.

All of this together was a game changer… the creative steel trans mount is AWESOME! Shirts are much cleaner/crisper and tight and not harsh at all feel so good.. awesome upgrade.

As of right now couldn’t be happier… car still has 206,500 miles so can’t expect perfection…
really love the car though and happy with this progress.

If you are able to work on these cars and can afford genuine parts go for it! If not… lol Mercedes is wild. Every part on the car has been replaced and any part not needs to be rebuilt/replaced…

while engine/transmission are great all around they’re trash but decent reliability..

current specs
Bilstien B8 H&R springs smallest pads
BS engine mounts/creative steel trans mount
goodridge phantom stainless brake lines
powerflex LCA bushings
high flow primary cats/secondary straight piped
supersprint center resonator and muffler
Renntech Airbox bms air filter and renntech tune
18x8.5 & 19x10 et 25 wheels

19x10 on 275 made a massive improvement in traction!

not Much else to do other than MSC headers

going to do w209 55 front calipers…
need to source/rebuild rear diff. As it whines…

then eventually full nut and bolt restoration 😂

these cars are really great… i have preferred it as a daily over G8x M4 and M2 manual..

think I will get rid of my 2025 M2 “comp” and just get more of these… 1 to manual swap and one to m113k swap..

if issue persists I may consider replacing shift solenoid and tcc lockup solenoid as they’re pretty cheap from fcpeuro…

Danny Kruger has a great video on their YouTube going over it step by step can’t believe I never saw it…

All really left to do is bodywork… I have thousands of dollars in NOS parts and everything needed currently don’t have access too.. wish me luck in getting it back!!!

 

Update! Almost 4 years later we are getting closer 😂
so while it got better it wasn’t good. I was planning to just replace the torque converter. Through my research I came across valvoline import multi vehicle ATF. From what I read it was “thicker” and worked for nag 1 236.10 fluid types originally in our cars. They “upgraded” to 326.12 and 326.14 mostly for the 7 speed and emissions which max life is closer to. Figured I’d give it a try… sucked out 4qts refilled and man! She’s sooo much smoother best she’s been. Shifts are not as crisp and a little slower it is noticeable but more comfortable and smooth.
going to run 250-500 miles suck out and replace another 4 qts. Hopefully that makes her perfect!!

i guess its really situational dependent on the vehicle. This car and my ML55 were both done well over 150k miles. ML55 had yellow undyed original fluid. I replaced 8 qts and that car has been absolutely great.

worth a shot if you’re in a similar situation.

you’re welcome for keeping up with this for so long whoever it helps. FWIW this was my first automatic transmission I’ve had and I am learning lol

the renntech Airbox and tune has been great for almost 10k miles. I recently learned about the Weistec ecu/tcu which are a great price and way more power.

Going to upgrade to creative steel engine mounts as the black series went bad after about 15k miles which is common for all of these mounts it seems.

also going to upgrade rear sway bar links to metal ones. After that maybe delete SAI and EGR.

only thing left to do after that is take every single part nut and bolt back together restore replace everything and put back together lol

 

Lmao.. little update.. so I found a differential.. used with 150k miles.. threw it on without changing fluid.. vibrations were worse!! Said diff decided to blow up @ 160.. pinion seal blew and maybe who knows what else but lots of play… I had picked up some more import atf and shudderfix to give a shot after the diff figuring that would be good to go.. threw the old diff back on.. filled with redline 75w90.. dumped a quart on the ground.. just buy 1 Lucas fill bag and then SAVE IT and just refill it with whatever you want lmao…

took her for a quick spin.. she felt good!! Figured I’d try the shudderfix just for ****s n gigs…BIG MISTAKE… sorta…

like it originally had fixed the 1-2 19mph shudder.. I started getting some around 26-28 going down my road early in the morning.. I also had vibrations that were visible in my rearview at highway speeds… and in driver side mirror.. I chocked them mostly up to ****ty roads.. on top of that as 40-44 vibrations got better.. 45-49 mph ones began..

after the shudder fix the issue was the original as this post.. mad shudder from 35-45 up and down and wack vibration anywhere from 41-44…

proceeded to suck out/refill 4 quarts at a time and just loop.. long stretch for 40-45 then highway.. accelerating up and down through the range after doing trans “reset” each time.

she cleared up everywhere else… no more vibrations in mirror and after every 4 quart drain/redill shudder and vibrations up/down range and at cruise almost gone.

15 quarts later… once again it’s “negligible”

hard to rule out differential and only rebuild really makes sense is with a quaife..

I feel like I can safely say that 1-2 19 mph “shudder” was fixed by shudderfix..

all in all had put about this being the 4th tube as well as the platinum..protector one and then lube guard red and maybe 50+ quarts of fluid since original service and post 😂😂😂😂

considering everything else is new…

im gonna drive some more and see if it makes sense to just do conductor plate/solenoids as suggested by @GatorMB whose the man!!!

am also considering loosening center bearing and then rolling car back and forth 20 times then tightening just cause **** it why not…

Other than that will just keep @ it. Strive for perfection and put a million miles on this thing. These cars will make amazing resto mods and I hope to have and build many! To fund the e46 M3 SMG with this V8 in it 😂👌🏼🤙🏼

 

Ever figure it out?