Untertürkheim

Hello everyone, a friend of mine just had his 2000 C230 serviced at Alderson Mercedes-Benz (Lubbock, Tx). Among the many things they did, one was a transmission service that he requested (the car has 100k miles). I was very surprised to hear that the service cost less than $300us. When I looked over the invoice, I noticed that they billed him for 3 hours of labor, transmission pan gasket and a filter, all this looked correct to me. I was concerned (and he soon became so too) to see they only billed him for 4 quarts of transmission fluid. I know from my experience that my cars (all MB) require 9-10 quarts of transmission fluid. Is there something different about the transmission in his car, or did they just not drain it completely (trans pan and torque converter)? Thank you all in advance, looking forward to your advice.

whoover

That transmission doesn't have a drain plug on the torque convertor. The proper way to change the fluid is to use a flushing system that connects to the transmission cooler hoses, and run about 20 quarts through. A good dealer will be equipped and do this. A drain of "what comes out" is useless.

mleskovar

I disagree....a drain, and filter and gasket change, will give you what you want (but may not even need!). The new synthetic trans fluids (like you have) last much longer in the important areas of effectiveness. The detritus from transmission wear is effectively trapped by the filter and remains dormant in the trans pan and is not continuously cycled through the pump, contol galley ways, and converter. Clean it out when you take off the pan to replace the filter. There's a reason the torque converter drain is no longer there.

xoy

If you want to chance ALL the oil in the tranny you must flush it. Only the old one (like w124) had a skrew in the converter. A lot of the oil is still in the converter when you only change filter and gasket (u only change about 2,2 - 2,5 liter of the total amount). For at normal service it will not be nessesary to flush the tranny, but if the car has high miles or u have shifting problems it would be to recommend (this will actually fix many of the problems that can accur), specially on the w211 this will improve the shifting ALOT and you will expirience a new driving pleasure :-) (also on other models).

There is a reason why the drain skrew is gone, but it is not because your should not be able drain all the oil.

mleskovar

MB says don't change transmission oil in the C....why do you think it's no longer there? I know most people disagree with the no change policy but that's MBs recommendation.

xoy

Well by that they mean don´t change it to service the car, but if you have problems with the quality of shifting f.eks it could solve many problems (normally on cars with high miles or cars that are driven ruff - taxi´s f.eks) and then it would in many cases be first choice by a mb dealership. I don´t know, but many mechanics are very unhappy about it. It allready went away with the W210/W210 facelift