Enginyr

We had the "2nd-to-1st clunking" on the tranny when it down shifted, fixed by a $141 reprogram. Now he is stating the front transmission pump on my 06 e350 will fail and to replace very soon costing $2,200. Stating there is a high pitch noise that I have never heard before. Anyone have any insight?

baldmike73

i had the same problem back on my 05 E500 - tcu was bad and tranny ended up being shredded - MBUSA bought the car back - ended up doing a tranny replacement for like $15K but at least it wasn't mine when the repair was done.

Enginyr

Well he didn't say it would be THAT bad but said the car would not shift after a while since the tranny would not be lubricated after the pump went out.

Fantasm

Sounds very expensive to replace just a pump... call around and get estimates on just the labor, and get the pump yourself from online or something.

nick 55

$2200 for just the pump is expensive, however, the estimate is probably way off. I have seen firsthand this failure 3 times. Each time, the bushing on the sun gear of the front pump spun, welding itself to the torque convertor. When that bushing does that, it creates friction on the gear, which starts to walk around in the pump housing and against the mating surface of the aluminum bell housing. All 3 cars needed a bellhousing and a torque convertor in addition to the pump, and if that happened to my car, I would definately replace the filter while I had the transmission apart. Each of the 3 people who's cars I have seen fail have an exagerated tendency to "get in and go" before the car even gets it's idle situated, giving the transmission and engine oils time to start circulating.

Nick

Meeyatch1

Is this problem exclusive to a certain model or model year? I ask because I have been thinking that my '07 E63 has a bit of a clunk when downshifting, but was not sure if it was normal or not.

Ohbev

when u say u have seen the problem first hand on what model car did u see the problems did u see it on e55kompressors ?

NCE500

Not sure if this is relative to your issue, but I had an 05 E500 several years ago, and it always had some low speed whine in 1st gear at light throttle.

I went through a few MB software updates to address the slowdown to 1st gear jerk/clunk issue, it was ultimately mostly resolved.

However, the 1st gear whine was there until the day I traded it, it never got better or worse. Never really thought or worried about it until I got my 07 E550 and realized how much quieter the transmission was. I may have had a bad transmission in the 05?, or perhaps it was just how the early 7G's were made.

Good luck with it.

nick 55

I have seen it on an 05 ML350, a 2004 SL500, and an 06 E350. Not exactly a specific model, or transmission(5 and 7 speeds were involved). This was not for a clunk or shifting issue, but just for the whining noise at all rpm levels, regardless of whether the car was in gear or not.

Nick