Originally Posted by Zacharias

I will recount a story from many years ago, on another Mercedes discussion list. The originator was I believe Stu Ritter, who some of you will remember went on to form another forum with Richard Easley. Stu was a Mercedes factory trained mechanic who worked in the dealer system before he opened his own shop.

Anyway, the tale went like this. Many years ago, it became federal law in the US that all auto manufacturers had to make their factory service manuals available for sale to the public. Prior to that many, including Daimler Benz, had refused to do so.

The story went that even once the law was in place, Mercedes made it as difficult as possible to obtain the manuals: dealers in the US and Canada would plead ignorance on how to order them, or would outright refuse.

Eventually someone who knew how to, complained, I assume to the FTC, and DB was hauled up in court, at which time they relented -- except for the transmission manuals. For whatever reason, they stubbornly refused to make those available and have continued to do so.

That's the story more or less as it was related back then, giving allowances for my less than perfect memory.