Greetings..I am about a week into my newly purchased 300SD and have discovered a few things..First one is that it appears to have a bad front seal in the transmission so I called the local MB shop (Ben's) and they quoted me about $700.00 just to replace the seal..I paid less than that to have a complete overhaul on a Buick overdrive! Is this trans that hard to remove?? Also the trans shifts REALLY hard. When it shifts from first to second it will bark the tires..It is firm in all gears, regardless of throttle pressure..I have checked the vacuum hoses and all seem good..Is there an adjustment somewhere? There is no slippage whatsoever..I sorta like it but my passengers don't ;-) It also kicks pretty hard when downshifting..Thanks in advance for any help! John

You have a vacuum problem most likely with your shifting.

If the tranny has more than 150k on it you should rebuild it. The reasoning is that its only about twice the labor as replacing the two seals you need to replace. Doing so will replace probably 50 seals that are just as likely to fail any day.

Also the early cars such as yours have a number of modifications that would be done by a specialist that would improve the drivability of the tranny.

BTW the reason its half the labor is that removing and replacing the trans is only about 60% of the work. The front of the transmission has to come apart in order to remove the front pump. The front seal leaks are just as likely to be the large pump to case o-ring as the torque convertor seal (front pump). We charge 5.5 for R&R (hour labor), 3.0 for disassemble of trans front and front pump. The whole trans rebuild is around 17 hours.

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Steve Brotherton
Owner 24 bay BSC
Bosch Master, ASE master L1
26 years MB technician