BMW's did it too as far as I remember.

I have seen situations where the fluid has never been changed and then at 180k+ miles gets changed and the transmission dies shortly thereafter.

With that said I have a friend that has a 90's diesel Chebby pickup and he changes fluid every year with a filter change every other year. The truck is currently showing over 350k miles on the original transmission.

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Jim

When I bought my '84 190E, the transmission was slipping somewhat, so I decided to change the fluid and adjust the bands. The band adjustment helped, but the fluid change... We found that there was no filter in there, along with the dark red-brown fluid.

Changed it, and installed a filter, and I got almost 6 years out of it with everyday driving before problems started up again.

Bought another transmission, and changed its fluid and filter, and adjusted it bands, and did the piston replacement upgrade. It shifts great, and will change the fluid again in around 40K.

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My first Mercedes Benz. 4/6/07.

1984 190E (201 024) 2.3L four.

Your friend is overdoing it to his chebby, but I like the idea.

I've got an old 1985 Oldsmosteal Toronado that uses the 4 speed with overdrive transmission. I did 25-30k fluid and filter changes on it, and it ran fine and died suddenly at 116k. The rebuilder told me that most of these transmissions failed at 75-80k, so mine had a good run. It's running fine now.

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My first Mercedes Benz. 4/6/07.

1984 190E (201 024) 2.3L four.

And with THAT being said we had an owner where i worked who put tons of miles on his car, the proverbial "travelling salesman" (which is just what he was), and he had a 210 diesel with the 722.6 in it. He did all service "by the book", he would be in about every month to two months for a service. We never did do a trans service on it, and he dumped it at 300K to one of our service writers, who then put another 50K on it, so 350K w/o a service when he went to another dealership so i lost track of it.

So I would still stand by my claim that if you get "a good one" they will last a very long time without a fluid change. If you don't have a good one (specs are off or maybe just the way the car is driven?) then it is going to hatch on you whether you change the fluid or not.

I don't think there is anything to the claim that MB did this purposely to make it look like the maintenance costs are cheaper. If they think it needs to be done they will say so, IMHO.

Gilly

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I figured they did it to sell low maintenance cars.

In regards to the 210 I've got a customer with a 99 E300 that is coming up on 280k miles on the original transmission. He typically just changes fluid/filter every 40k miles and the car drives and runs out great.

I sure do like those 210 turbodiesels.

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Jim

I think this one was a 97 non-turbo with a 722.6, make sense?

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When MBUSA introduced the service requirement for the 722.6, didn't they state the service was required to maintain shift quality, with no mention of any other reason? I used to have a copy of the technical supplement, but deleted it in a recent fit of virtual housekeeping.

This mirrors my experience with the old 2001 E320 wagon. I never serviced the trans because, well, it didn't call for any. About 75K miles in the shift quality got funny - just a little bit of a grab and lurch into 3rd and 4th, but nothing real bad. The car was under Starmark, so I had the dealer pull codes and adaptations from the trans, all of which looked fine. My service writer, bless her heart, refused to sell me a transmission service because the car wasn't on her list of vehicles that required it. After a couple of attempts to buy a trans service - seriously! - I gave up, ordered the parts, and did it myself. I really hate servicing transmissions at home. It's messy and the older I get, the harder the garage floor becomes (no lift). Anyways, the shift quality was instantly back to normal and remained so for the rest of my ownership.

MB has never "introduced" a service requirement for the 722.6 that I know of (I can recheck, last checked about a year ago).
If there is no leak the level should stay the same. That said MB does recommend having the trans filled to the max line. Not over filled, just at the max level line. This is for improved shift quality.
Gilly

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Click here to see the items I have up for auction at EBay

Click here to see a photo album of my '62 Sprite Project Moneypit (Now Sold)