I have a 99 clk 430 and last night I noticed at low speeds that there was a noise coming from the gearbox areathat was sort of a gravel like noise. If you have ever driven an old manual drive car and when going from 1st to reverse sometimes not get it all the way in, it will sound like the pressure plates turning and does not drive the car. This is sort of what it sounded like. The gears shift very smoothly and never slip. You have power when you need it, but this noise I have noticed will sometime when rolling go away for a few seconds and then come back. I was worried that the tranny was going out, but after reading some about gearbox problems I am wondering about that. Again, the tranny does not slip any and changes gears great. Could this be a gearbox problem and if so, is it expensive to fix. The car has 91k on it. Any help on diagnosing this would be greatly appreciated.

 

you'll need a new tranny soon.
that's what mine did when mine turned to scrap metal.
you can find a used one for much cheaper.
i got one with 63k miles for $5000. MAKE SURE you get a warranty

 

Good call. I did have it checked out and and found that a bearing had come loose in side and had been tossed around enough that it chipped a couple of the gears. I had to have that gear replaced along with a new set of bearings. I asked the owner of the shop, who happens to be from Germany, what he saw inside. He said it was an unusual case where a bearing would fall apart, but not impossible. He said that everything looked like brand new other than where the bearing was tossed around and made some scratches. He advised that I will probably never have another problem with the tranny for a long time. He did say that it is unusual for the clk's to have many problems overall because Mercedes did take their time in designing them and they were built very well. It was not cheap to fix, but he said it could have done more damage when it fell out and caused a new tranny to be on order. His recommendation was for anyone with a clk, the first instance you hear that sort of sound, park it or get it to your local shop immediately and park it. He said that if I had driven it for a little as another day, it very easily could have destroyed the tranny in whole. I wanted to post my results in case someone else out there ever had this problem, they could have some direction to minimize their repair cost. Thanks to Ilovemyclk for the post.

 

your very welcome
and im glad you were able to catch yours in time and let other people know about it.
its no fun to get a new tranny.
my mom and i have both gotten new transmissions in the past year in our 7 series bmw and in the clk and its no walk in the park