John,

Glad to hear your car is back and running great. Great pic BTW. Just to confirm, all they did to your car was replace the radiator and torque converter? No new gearbox then?

 

Hi Rex,

It had a complete new gearbox as well as the torque convertor & radiator - I was without the car for 3 weeks but fortunately I didnt have to pay for the repairs as I believe they would have costed around £4000!!!

Glad you like the pic, the car has a full AMG body kit with 18" AMG wheels which really beefs it out but not nearly as beefy as this CLK 63 AMG Black series out next month if you have a spare £100K!!!

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/carrevi...cedes_clk.html

 

Not good news on my front, I have received a letter all the way from MB Germany this morning saying:

'The glycol contamination of the gearbox of my Mercedes-Benz CLK is not recognised by the manufacturers to be a design fault. Whilst they are aware that there have beena couple of incidents of this nature, the numbers in comparison to the amount of units sold which have not experienced this problem does not warrant a design change or recall. They hope that I will appreciate thattechnical problems can occur on vehicles even after stringent testing by the manufacturers'.

The financial gesture made by them 'was awarded to assist me as a loyal customer'

Need time to mull over a suitable reply.

Gary

 

Gazz,

the response you got in the letter seems odd about not needing a redesign...since Valeo actually did redesign the radiator to prevent the issue of coolant transmission from occuring.... In fact, some MB owners over on mbworld.org say that if a car has the defective Valeo unit, that it is only a amatter of time before the coolant begins getting into the transmission...And thus some have prophylactically replaced their Valeo radiators with Behr.

Update on my vehicle: I did not get a new trans, just new torque converter and new radiator. Well, today my car starts shaking like it' having a seizure (repairs were done 2-3 weeks ago). I had it towed back to my apartment and will have it towed to the dealer in the morning. Maybe this is due to something unrelated to the transmission, but who knows. I will update as I learn more.

 

Nice pic Johncrompton.

How much was the star grille?

Blue

 

Oops, I hope that question doesn't seem impolite.
But, I am interested in getting one for my carif its reasonable.

Blue

 

To all interested parties

Been a while since I've been on the site, however, after initially offering nothing, MB have recently offered me a £500 voucher towards anything Mercedes.I must add this was after I emailed the Chief Exec. at Milton Keynes to tell him I wasn't happy with one of his cars.

I'm taking advice on this and will update you all soon.

Gary

 

possible cos coolant in the system,if no help from mb,then remove gear box sump pan ,remove filter streap filter and check for metal filings; if very little filings found,flush gear box cooling pipes and renew radiator .... mb atf oil only to befilled it takes 6liters 5 liters coolant ..... the main cause for this is radiator has a hair line crack check if radiator made by valeo if valeo this are faulty rads regards naz hope all go well.................

 

Hi All,
Just joined this forum as well as the 3 others as I also have the same problem with my 02 C180 W203.
Starting hearing a droning noise at about 50- 60 mph, about 4 months ago,and a month ago started getting harsh jerky/kickback like changes between 1-2+ 2-1.
MB of Hertford in the UK, said there was not a known problem and would charge me over £60 for a gylcol test.
I have been to 3 garages , 2 of which are gearbox specialists, one is a Merc indie, who have all said the problem is definately glycol and itis very common amoungst the C and E class's even the newer models are coming in with it.
Was quoted between £2700, £2100, and £1700 cash, with a 12 month garantee.
Will be getting a new transmission cooler fitted which bypasses the original rad, so cheaper, and the torque converter, and gearbox will be reconditioned. This is all being done by a gearbox specialist with 30 years experiance.
I'm also very upset with MB for ignoring this problem, and now we are thinking of selling the car once it is fixed and going back to Nissan.
Does anyone know how I can see whether the rad is Valeo,as I'm not sure where to look under the bonnet.?

 

I can't belive so many of us are having the same troubles. I have a 02 C230 coupe and was just told by the dealer my tranny troubles were caused by glycol in the fluid and they want $6,600 for the repair. Someone in the c-class pages is a lawyer and is trying to put together a class action suit. Something needs to be done...