Hello everyone! First off, this is a great forum.

This past week I took delivery of a brand new 2012 E350 and so far, I love it. I am a complete newbie to Mercedes-Benz as it is my very first one as well as a newbie to European cars in general. Most of my experience is through Japanese cars mainly through Toyota/Lexus. Because of this, I had to completely adjust to things such as the lack of a headlight stalk as it is a completely separate dial on the left-hand side of the dashboard.

I had a few questions that I'd like to inquire through here. I'm a member of other car enthusiast forums so I knew to search before posting but I couldn't come up with definite answers so here they are:

1. I see that there's an engine oil dipstick but there is no transmission oil dipstick. Why? I've also read that the transmission oil is "lifetime" so there is no need to service it, is this true and is this the reason why there's no transmisison oil dipstick?

2. This is my first car with lug bolts, what is the thread pitch on the lug bolts?

3. I've read that there is no oil drain plug on the bottom of the car, is this true? I'd like to know before I tear off all those underbody guard panels just to check. Google has told me that oil changes on Mercedes-Benz are through top-evacuation through the use of a pump, is this why there's no oil drain plug? Maybe that's why I found the oil filter on the top, pretty convenient as well.

Thanks in advance, I look forward to your replies. I'll be sticking around the forums, this is a pretty neat place.

 

Congratulations and welcome!

The trans fluid and filter require changing at 4 years or 40K miles. There is no dipstick for the transmission. Check the maintenance schedule. There is a detailed MB list of required and recommended service at miles and years on this forum. Look in "Sticky Service 207 Coupe and 212 Sedan at the top of the W212 page.

The lug bolts require a 17mm socket. They are 14mm X 1.5 thread ball seat bolts. The length may vary according to the wheel.

Yes there is a drain plug for the oil. Some change their oil with an evacuation pump via the dipstick. The oil filter is fleece and has I believe 3 or 4 oil rings that have to be changed. They come with the filter. Oil is MB specification Mobil 1 OW40 or 5W40. The engine requires 8 liters equal to 8.45 US quarts. Check your service info.

 

Thanks for the reply, really good info!

I was also wondering if there's a website that sells OEM Mercedes-Benz parts such as oil filters at a discounted rate? I use a pretty good website for my Toyota where I could buy things such as 10-pack genuine OEM oil filters for under $40.

 

Here's a good place to check out.

http://genuinemercedesparts.com/

 

Thanks, this website looks pretty good. Have you ordered anything from them before?

 

I havent, just came across them while searching the forum, figured i'd share. One day I hope to have a merc to order stuff for!

 

i've ordered something from parts.com before. fast shipment and reasonable prices. funny thing is the things that i ordered are from one of the mercedes dealers.