Yep, the old fuel filter is obsolete. The new one is of a larger capacity so I think it's the fuel lines which need to be changed. There's also an updated fuel pump/sender assembly. There have been an inordinate amount of fuel pump failures due to the small capacity of the filter. The new one they say fixes this.

Your manual will tell you that the transmission is filled for life. I don't know how long that means, we Mercedes owners would like to think 500k miles, although I don't think I'll ever see that in my ML. Some techs say that changing the tranny fluid will dislodge the gunk which will clog the tranny and cause a failure. Others say if you don't go off road too much it should be fine. I don't know either way.

Kuan