PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

Palangi · #6 08-24-2002, 11:12 AM

I put a new (used) differential in mine a couple months back. This car had always shifted very rough, especially 1-2, had clunks in the driveline, etc. The car developed a roaring noise, like a bad wheel bearing. I took it to my mechanic, who diagnosed it as a bad rear wheel bearing, which he was not equipped to fix. Took it to an MB shop, who diagnosed it as a bad pinion shaft bearing. (Had sparkely metal chips in the oil). Installed a differential (complete rear axle, actually) from a wrecking yard.

The clunking is gone, the rough shifting is gone, and, to my amazement, so is the 20% error in speedometer and odometer readings! Turns out, this car had the wrong differential in it when I got it!! The rough 1-2 shift was because it was winding up to too high of RPM's before shifting. An extra bonus is the true fuel mileage is up from the low to mid 20's to the mid to high 20's. Also, I now have some good spare half-shafts.

Bottom line is, I suspect the true mileage may be higher than shown. This was a one owner, little old lady car, which was showing 97k when I got it, and the stamps in the maintenance book for it's early years seemed to support that. I always was a bit suspicious about the speedometer error, but then, none of the 123 speedometers seem to read perfectly accurately. I never would have imagined that the differential would have been changed in 97k. The only other thing i have found to be suspicious was the non-MB water pump, but I imagined that to be possible in 97k.

Like they say, these cars wear so well, it is really hard to tell for sure if they have been rolled back.