My 2003 C320 transmission started to shudder so I take it to the dealer. They charge $780 to "diagnose" the problem as coolant in the transmission fluid and say I need a new transmission, new radiator and new torque converter - an $8000 repair. He started to say on the phone that these cars were "notorious" for this problem then quickly corrected himself to say he had seen this happen on others. This car has only 58,000 miles on it and I expected more from German engineering. Has anyone else had this issue? If it is a design problem, won't Mercedes fix it? The book value on this car is only 12,000. I can't see paying 8,000 to fix it.

 

If it were my car, I think I would take it to an independent MB garage and tell them what's going on and what was found......and get their take on it. If you are going to keep the car, that is about the only way to justify the money. It's going to be hard to sell it with this kind of problem.....so.......you are up against a wall here. The best way is to make sure you really do or don't need all the things they said you did, and the only way to do that is to talk to some other repair people. Then make your decision. These cars are expensive to repair, no doubt. If my transmission went now, I'm not sure it would be worth repairing with the high miles I have on the car. Once the thing goes over 100K miles, as mine has a long time ago, just try to sell it. You have to get used to people hanging up the phone when you tell them. But, in all fairness, this can be true of most cars, not just MB.

 

yup i have seen this happen to over 100 cars there is a service bulitin out it is so popular. how ever your trans is jump the clutches have coolant in them now you need a trans torqe converter and a radiator. might be cheaper to just buy a new car