You might be suprised....

But from what I've seen more and more- dealerships take oil fluid samples on failed parts. That way they can send it to the lab and when it comes back that you have your synthetic oil in the diff..... it will be your dime, not mb's.

I follow MB's recommendations. They seem to update the lubrication sheets with some regularity. That to me, says they are on top of it. API specs don't always align with manufactures. I remember reading in 2000 a survey that showed 90% of the oils tested didn't meet API spec on the bottle!!!

As for the grease- incompatibility *is* a problem at times. Heck, I can remember an alaska airlines plane that went down due to the wrong grease was attacking the worm-gear.

The best argument for using the factory grease- is it's really fantastic grease. It is made by shell I believe- it's the same thing that the F-18 fighters have in their wheel brgs (so I've been told). You'd have to go through the mil-specs.

Please tell us how brgs have NOT changed in 60 years... is it not now common to use 1050 steel instead of the 52100???

Michael

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Michael McGuire
83 300d
01 vw A4 TDI
66 Chevy Corsa
68 GMC V6 w/oD
86 300E