I am really not sure what to do with this, at first I was so frustrated I was planning to just sell it as a parts car, but since the differennse in price could be amonths pay, I would like to make a reasonable effort to fix it.

When I bought the car, it had 225k on it, and the transmission is original. The previous owner ws the second owner, and said the fluid had been changed before but had no receipts. It did function fine when i bought it.

After driving it for a few months, it started to engage a little rough when taking off from a stop (especially when cold), and also whine at higher rpm until warmed up. It would also sometimes flare on upshifts when accelerating harder (merging onto the freeway most of the time). It would also occasionally shift extremely rough if you accelerate, back off then accelerate again.

After that, I drained the pan and torque converter, changed the filter and pilot bushing for the electrical plug, put the pan back on with a new gasket and filled it with 7.75 quarts of Shell ATF-134 (showed full on the and it was slightly better, but not a lot.

I believe i asked here and read a few other places that the conductor plate on a car with that mileage should really be changed, so I recently changed it, and repeated the above steps otherwise except it took 8 quarts to show full on the dip stick.. It was much improved for about 2 weeks of driving to work, then it went into limp mode when making a U-turn, so I drove it the few minutes home and parked it. When I checked the fluid on the dipstick with it cold, there was no fluid showing on it at all, and it had a P-0748 code stored. I checked for leaks and there were none, and added 3/4 quart of fluid which now shows filled to the hot full mark on the dipstick with the car cold.

I haven’t driven it again yet, but I plan to let it warm up and suction some of the fluid out if needed to get to the correct level and drive it again and see what happens, but I don't think I fixed anything so it will just continue to happen.

Does anyone have any suggestions of what may be wrong, or if this car would be able to be fixed to the point of not having this happen every couple weks for cheaper than just replacing it? I haven't spent a ton of money making this one much better than any other reasonably decent one, so if selling it is the best choice that’s fine too. I honeslty really dislike automatics, but I want to drive a diesel and VWs dont agree with me so there are not a lot of other options.

Hi
If you have a 722.5 the correct level to have good shifts is at MAX at 80 C .
I use infrared tolls directed on the oïl pan and when oïl is at 80 C you have to put hand brake ad gear in D. For security i also put wood in front of Wheel.
I have a CLK 430 1998 i think transmission is similar 722.5 and I have 300.000 Km with no problem.
This model had also some springs that broke Inside valve body but now i am not able to tell you wich exactly.
I think next step is inspect one by one springs on each side of valve body.
Your code is pressure control solenoid may be is just this one going bad.
Hope this help you a little

If I understand correctly the dealer doesn't sell the springs, only the whole valve body? If that is the case, does anyone sell a kit with all of them or have them available? I would rather just take it apart once and replace everything that might need replacing even if it was a couple hundred dollars, because transmission fluid is expensive too, and I don't really have a convenient place to leave it with the transmission taken apart for a week or two while I order parts.

Has anyone else had issues like this and actually gotten the car driveable again? I can't find too much about it, most information online is either from when the cars were newer and the dealer just swapped the transmission under warranty, or people never really seem to come back and report that whatever they did worked.

I went through something similar with my CLK430 722.6 a couple years ago.

-Changed fluid (with Titan approved ATF, 236.14 IIRC) and filter, slightly better but not totally improved

-Changed the leaky plug and did an adaptive reset, again some improvement but not what I was after

-Also researched conductor plate, so replaced that with a new OEM unit and another round of new ATF and filter as my vintage doesn't have the torque converter drain, did ANOTHER adaptive reset and it was about 75% better at this point.

-Finally I noticed old ATF had wicked up into the computer as a result of that old leaky plug design, so I pulled it apart and cleaned it per instructions I found online, and THAT is what ended up fixing all my ails after a lot of monkeying around.


If you had a leaky plug and changed it, chances are the computer has some ATF in it and is causing all sorts of oddities as a result. It's been over 2 years and 20k miles and it still functions perfectly at this point. Now I know around 2000 (?) some changes were made to beef up the 722.6, but you may want to start with checking the computer for fluid intrusion before giving up on your AT.

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1995 E300 Diesel
~300k

Thanks for the suggestions, I will have to see if any of that helps. I really wish mercedes had made more diesels with manual transmissions. I hate the idea of the transmission being a $5k box of magic that you never know when it might fail and make the car basically worthless, but unfortunatly thats pretty much the way it is for a car this old. I think I must have selectively forgotten everything I have read about how awful these transmissions are when I liked the car othrerwise, but that obviously wasn't a good choice.

Mercedes does make diesels with manual transmission....only issue is, they're euro only.

You have no idea what I would do for a wagon W210 CDI with cloth interior, knob AC and stickshift.

The $5k box of magic, as you say, turns out to be one of the best transmission ever designed, imo. Damn near bulletproof, very smooth, great delivery, and best of all, it's everywhere, thanks to the daimler-chrysler merger.

Mercedes builds what most _new_ car buyers want, what is the year / model of new MB cars have you bought? What is the typical new MB buyer looking for?

This confirms that you don't have a fundamental understanding of this or other automatic transmissions. Yes, the automatic transmission by far is the most complex system in a modern car in terms of mechanical engineering and shift control design but, is isn't magic.

The 1996 transmissions had a controller and valve body refit in the early days and circa 98 a bushing was changed to a needle bearing, needle thrust washers / planet gear thrust washers gained a tab to prevent rotation ( and the resultant wear of the planetary. )

These upgrades are part of having 100's of thousands units in the field. There is absolulty no way every possible failure point can be discovered in the design stage and still result in a affordable car.

Sell the car to someone who deserves the Merc.

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UK spec Mercedes W210 E300 Turbodiesel wagon - OM606.962 with 722.6 transmission - rust free!

Harsh.

Mercedes makes many cars with manual transmissions, no sunroof, steel wheels, cloth seats, ... but MBUSA only imports the ones that are well-equipped as this is the market where they want to be, not competing with base Impalas. Also, if you've driven a turbodiesel car with a stick, it is not as simple as a non-turbo car, these early diesels (61x, 60x) have lots of turbo lag and the automatic transmission helps to keep boost up during shifts.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

Yes, the reality of automatic transmission cars is at 150,000-250,000 miles , you may need a transmission rebuild. The w124s were real bad. Me and friends did 3 transmissions in one summer. We pulled them and took them to a local transmission shop that did a lot of MB and audi and vw . The mb indie shop recommended a guy there to me. It cost's 900.00 a piece for rebuild. Even manual transmissions go. My 1998 beetle tdi just blew the tranny . I put new clutch and pressure plate in a couple years ago. Now tranny blew out.

My suggestion is pull the transmission yourself and take it to someone who knows those and can rebuild it, test the valve body etc. Should be maybe 1500 . Maybe try a valve body first. A lot of times transmission shops can get good used ones.

Once that's done you won't be sorry. It's cheaper than a new car. And if you know the rest of the car is good you just bought it another 150,000 miles or so hopefully.

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What Would Rudolph Do?
1975 300D, 1975 240D, 1985 300SD, 1997 300D, 2005 E320 , 2006 Toyota Prius

Wow, I had forgotten how unpleasant some of the responses here can be... Anyway, I agree that an automatic may very well only last 150k miles, thats really the main reason I say I dislike them. A car with a manual transmission might last 3-400k miles with only a couple flutch changes, but a car with an automatic would be the same price if they both had say 180k miles, but need a $3k transmission within the next 100k.

I do think that the transmission in mine is showing signs of wear, but I also think even that with a new transmission it has electrical issues that would still keep it from working right. Thats the part I don't really know how to fix, from what I can find all I can really do is make sure that no transmision fluid has leaked into the computer (I don't think it has, the plug was never oily inside) and set the fluid level properly, and just hope that it works. Relying on 20 year old german electronics for things that need to work for the car to be safe does not really seem like all that great of an idea if you think about it too much to be honest lol.

The number I've always worked with for a well-cared for 722.x (from my experience and reading others' experiences) is 300k miles....disappointed with anything less, pleased with anything more. If you don't know how well it was maintained by the previous owner, then it really is a crap shoot.

If the need ever arose, I would probably buy a reman from Sun Valley. rebuilt remanufactured mercedes benz automatic transmissions

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14 E250 Bluetec 4Matic "Sinclair", Palladium Silver on Black, 159k miles
06 E320 CDI "Rutherford", Black on Tan, 178k mi, Stage 1 tune, tuned TCU
91 300D "Otis", Smoke Silver on Tan, 145k mi, wastegate conversion, ALDA delete

19 Honda CR-V EX 75k mi
Fourteen other MB's owned and sold
1961 Very Tolerant Wife

Rebuilt transmissions are actually a lot cheaper than I would have expected. I am afraid the electronic issues or whatever I damaged in changing the conductor plate are beyond my skill to disgnose and beyond my budget to pay someone else to do though. Its too bad because I would like to keep it, but I am kinda stuck. I am not really smart enough to disgnose anything myself or find electrical problems, but things that I already know what needs to be done before I start (brakes, clutch, timing belt, om617 valve adjustment, etc) I can do with no problem. I did set the fluid level correctly and drive it again, and it goes into limp mode after a few minutes. The only thing I have left to try cleaning the plug to the transmission computer (I would be surprised if it has fluid in in because it wasn't leaking where in comes out of the transmission), but after than I am afraid I have to give up if it still doesn't work.

Did you ever check the TCU in the coffin box to see if there was any ATF in it?

Not yet, as of now that's last on my list of things to try before listing the car for sale, although I do not believe that the plug has leaked enough in the past for that to be an issue. I will still check though.