i belive no car manufacture from us-euro-asia can give a life term warranty on the automatic transmission.

go service your tranny / do more research with mb dealers

rockerfella174

 

Mercedes automatic transmissions are extremely expensive to repair or overhaul, so that is something you want to avoid at all cost.
Oil is absolutely vital to the life of a gear box and, like others said before, oil will degrade after time. Also the gearbox gets warm and this also 'helps' in degrading the oil.
Old oil can eventually clog up your filter, which prevents the oil from getting back in your gearbox, resulting in a lot of damage to your gearbox.

Changing the oil should not be a big amount of work, but remember to also change the filter.
Trust me, a 100 USD oil change is a lot cheaper than a repair job of 4000 or 5000 USD (and that is cheap !).
________
DebbieUK live

 

Oh and btw............find yourself another mechanic, because idiots who tell you that you don't need to change oil should not work on your car.
Would not surprise me if he also tells you that you don't need to change brake oil too.
________
hairy Cam

 

Mambo, you have a correct answer- the mechanic is an idiot...

 

LOL!! Thanks!!

 

Can I add, to help anyone who searches the forum in the future, every UK W220 should have had the transmission oil changed at 40k miles, as it says to on page 15 of the service book that comes with UK models. Can't speak for other countries though.

 

assuming the rest of the car makes it to 100K

 

i have over 173K miles on it now. I'm almost afraid to change it now. think i'll get 250K on that transmission?

 

always change your fluids. a basic fluid change is just draining the oil, dropping the pan, changing the filter, attachign the pan, adding new oil. You at least want that done no matter how many miles on your tranny. With a basic tranny oil change, there is still lots of oil in the valve body and various other nooks and crannies anda good flushing takes care of that. There have been stories, I have yet to personally see it, that some poor chap decides that he's going to go get a full trany flushed on some tranny that havent seen new transmission oil since it rolled off the show room in the early 80s or 90s and after spending about $100 his tranny stopped working all of a sudden and stuck with a $4,000+ repair bill. I aint never seen it happen besides on some tranny that was already going to kick the bucket i.e car coming across my way looking for a quick job that reeks of burnt tranny fluid and burnt friction plates. Or one that is barely shifting in the first place and just turning the tranny drain plug would've killed it. Hey, I'm not saying it hasnt happened or never will I just aint seen it, especially on a Mercedes/BMW transmission.

And about these mechanics saying dont change the fluid because "It will hold up better." Not sure what's the science behind that logic. Dont maintain something and it will hold up better. And when I go look at the reviews for the W220 and other newer Mercedes/BMWs/Jaguars and a common and usually quite angry complaint is "the tranny went out prematurely at barely (usually between 75,000-110,000 miles." "and some add that their old Toyota neevr had that problem. They probably listened to the same type of advice and if you ask them if they ever in the lifetime of the car change the tranny oil, 97% of them say no. But when you ask then if they changed it in that old Toyota, surprisingly they say yes and some even add to keep it runnign good. I tried hard not to laugh. So they change the oil religously on that old Toyota but buy a $100,000 car and never change the oil and get pissed that it breaks early? hell if they never changed the oil i nthe toyota same thign would happen and probably develop shift problems way before then. But some people get lucky, just as some people dont change the timing chain on their W126s/Jaguar XJ8/XJR every 100,000 miles or so and is pushing 200K no problem. Some dont even make it to 105,000 before ebign stranded with a mangles motor. Just as some people have 560SELs with no oil in the hydromatic suspension tank and been riding like that for years while some go dry for a month and they looking at a repair tha tis equal to a nice sized house morgage down payment. I know people with the infamous 350SDL bought new that never had a hiccup and pushing 250K now. While other already been through the bent rod nightmare before 1992. I know some people with the 1994-1995 Nikasil BMW V8 engine block and still rolling no troubles with the material while some had ot get a whole new engine job done before they even hit 30,000 miles. I know some people who litterally wont change their engine oil unti ltheir car start running "funny" every 30k-40k and had no major issues while some go half that and have engine wear and looking at a cam job in the near future. You rolling the dice if dont maintain.

 

I am not sure if you have serviced you car yourself or if a dealer has done it, but if it has been maintained by a dealer and it has never had a change of transmission oil yet, I would never ever go back to that dealer again, as it has not even been serviced inline with the origional MB service requirements. What else hasn't been done would be my question/fear.