Hi all. Just changed belt tensioner at 61450 miles. It was not making noise but pulley had a slight wobble. I also took off belly pans (because I dropped a socket down there) and cleaned them. They were filled with debris and a bug cemetery. All in all job was not hard.

Front belly pan.

Bad belt tensioner.

 

Nice! How was the belt, did you change it? Belts have gotten a lot better over the years but I still swap them 60-80K. I hear of people with over 100K on their belts but I have had 2 go under 80K on two different cars. I don't even know the service interval for the belt?
Thanks for posting, good stuff!

 

The belt looks perfect. If there is a change interval I have not gotten close to it to register in the required maintenance work. I do have to inspect it at intervals, I do recall that in my service literature.

If it need to be replaced it would be easy.

 

The trans service is 60K on the S550. Pretty important one. I know you are a maintenance person like me, check yours, as I am sure it's different for the Maybach but it may be soon or overdue. When I was researching my car I think the AMG cars were sooner? Its can be a DIY, pretty straight forward from what I read so far.

Wait a second, I think I remember you stating there was no converter drain plug on yours???? Did you do yours??? LOL

 

Yes I did the trans service. You will need a scan tool that shows trans temp and the fitting for filling the trans. And yes no converter drain plug.

When i say I have not ran into belt replacement it’s because with the WIS program you plug into your cars vin number and the workshop codes you get off the car accessed from the steering wheel buttons. After you do this wis makes a custom maintenance overview for you exact car. You then just follow what it says to do for that specific interval.

My my previous version of wis was outdated and didn’t have the maybach or the Amg gtc vin references so I got the latest wis. It has all the good stuff now.

I will I’ll say one thing I did defer on the spark plugs. The laser irridum ngk plugs which I believe are the Mercedes plugs are designed for 80000 miles as per ngk web data.

 

https://weistec.com/all/mercedes-ben...ssion-pan.html
Thought you may like this....

 

I saw that. Pricey but really makes thing easier ! Nice, Thanks!

 

So you don't worry about the bulk of the fluid in the TC? I guess when they do a flush at the dealer, its the only way to get a complete swap?

 

I still have half the fluid that a total change over requires. I would have done it all if my converter had had a plug. So I did the next best thing I could do and change out half the fluid. I still have enough new fluid to do it again early if I want to.

I have read many times over that fluid flushes are a really bad thing and contribute to the early failure of countless transmissions. Hence I wont do any fluid flushes.

 

With the exception on no drain plug, does this video represent the job from start to finish? Also, at 9:12, did you flush the cooler? Do you have those lines? Preparing this summer to do the job..
Thanks

Found this also...

 

Katie ROCKS! I am in awe!

 

There prolly is a cooler but I didn’t have any description of it in the wis documents I followed.

when I do oil changes on my gtc it has the oil coolers discribed in the document and explains how they are drained as well.

 

I posted the drections for trans fluid change on a new post. It is for the V12 but they give an idea what is involved.