Had a weird couple of maladies on my 300e ('90), but thankfully a 'happy' ending.

3 mos ago my engine oil started leaking out badly and was needing a full quart per week. I noticed a lot of splotches on the ground, and saw that the front of the engine was very wet & oily...from searching this forum I deduced it was probably the timing cover seal or worse...(head gasket)...and assumed I would be facing a pretty big bill to fix.

Last week my trans started flairing when cold, but worked well after a couple of minutes...but this scared the $&^t out of me because the fluid level seemed fine! so now I figure I have a big engine AND trans repair, all at once.

Here's what my tech found:

1) the oil leaked because 2 oil/filter changes ago, the oil shop put THE WRONG SUMP PLUG IN and the subsequent tech didnt even figure it out! cost: 3$, potential cost: I dont wanna know.

2) the trans was flaring because the THE FLUID WAS AT 1/4 THE REQUIRED AMOUNT..it was low because the cooling flex hose had sprung a leak and was spraying the front of the engine, and just LOOKED like engine oil leaking near the head-to-block union. cost: 45$ for the new hose, plus $70 for a new trans filter and MOBIL SYNTHETIC ATF, which I happily paid for. Potential cost: I dont wanna even think about it.

(prices in CDN$)

The moral of the story?:

1) dumbo oil mechanics are everywhere and make dumbo mistakes
2) reading the ATF dipstick is not as easy as checking engine oil.
3) SYNTHETIC ATF IS AWESOME. The shifting is now almost imperceptible...I actually need to look at the tach to know that a shift has actually taken place sometimes, no joke.

Hope this can help someone, sometime, somewhere.

Cheers

CB