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I had so much fun with my SL55 this summer, possibly too much fun. I did pretty hard pulls from 0-60 mph few days ago, had lots of fun again, parked it. Few days later, I slowly drive out of the neighborhood and then give it 75% throttle on main road and all of a sudden, seems like I am not in a gear. I look at the door dash, and I am in a gear. I realize my tranny is slipping. I couldn't really get it up to speed as anything more than 20% throttle would just raise the rpm's and would not gain more speed. If I did it slowly, it would not shift to the next gear, and once I reached 5k or little more of rmp's and speed, i would release the throttle and while slowing down, I could hear some slight winning noise
I limped to the closest parking and I check engine light lit up. I attempted to drive again, but it would slip right away, meaning I would be in "D" but car would just spin the rpm's with no power to wheels. While I was waiting for a tow truck, the transmission cooled down and it would go again to gear and drive, I even got it once to the second gear, but I was back again with same situation I was when I got out of neighborhood half hour ago. After half hour or so, the tranny cooled down and I could at least drive up on the tow truck with no issues. I took it to a local imports shop tonight. We will see how it goes. I don't know what the codes are yet, I will post more info tomorrow. I was told by the pervious owner that the car is tuned with some custom pulleys and suppose to be at 600hp or so. I never had it dyno'd so I am not sure, but maybe too much power to the stock transmission?
What you guys think? If tranny is bad, should I buy an used tranny on ebay or have the shop rebuilt it?
How about getting the manual swap? Maybe ahead of Tavarish's 3 year project, lol?
The shop would likely have a transmission shop do the actual rebuild. The NAG1 is a fairly common transmission and a good shop will have suggestions for upgrades based on your power levels. If you had an SL500, I would say get a salvage yard unit. There are low mileage transmissions available for a few hundred dollars. However, a tuned SL55 is a different animal and I think you will want to do some upgrades.
Just a quick follow up. I ended up getting a low miles user tranny from a fellow forum member. Shop swapped it for around $1600, which I though was reasonable. Works like a charm, putting those horses down again
In the mean time, when I get some time, I will see about building the one that failed for more HP
Thank you all!
08-22-2021, 09:27 PM
