RAFFIE55

Well Everyone! I had the great pleasure to have my transmission replaced at 128,000 on the wife's ML430. I went to Sun Valley Mercedes here in California. Just got it back and runs perfect. There claim to fame is they replace that expensive MB trans fluid with dextron III. However, you should from now on replace the fluid every 24000 miles or 2 years and filter. That claim that Mercedes has "lifetime" is a bunch of crap! Well acutally the synthetic is lifetime of the trans. Which is about 100,000 then it blows up like a time bomb. Common weak link in the Mercedes is the trans. Has anyone had similar experience and or has feed back

AH1W-COBRA

im doing a trans/converter/cooler flush and filter on our 03 s500.i did however stick with the synthetic MB spec fluid.it is expensive but i like synthetics and also plan on 30k mile interval flushes.i dont buy into lifetime fluids either,auto trasmissions are simply hydraulic pumps that use "friction"material on plates in the clutches.it degrades,wears, shears and contaminates the fluid.the filter is not designed to be a lifetime component.if the trans was never opened for any reason and the fluid never changed the trans would eventually fail based upon accellerated wear from contaminated fluid/filter.i dont understand why MB trys to save us money by trying to develop fluids that will outlive the environment they are contained in.if their philosophy is correct than i will save the fluid i drain out of my 52k mile trans and send it back to germany and they can pour it into a brand new SLR Mclaren without any worries at all.