TED (and others, )
After 25-30 years of monkeying with cars to varying degrees, I too have learned to check everything more than once. I checked the car after putting the fluid in (sheet of cardboard underneath the car to catch drips and act as a "tell-tale"), then went out and drove it on the freeway (about 10 miles), drove it back in city traffic and pulled it back into the garage. No sign of leaks or problems at that point in time.
As I said, since it was the first time I'd done one of these, I was meticulous in the procedures (keeping things clean, tightening by hand / torque wrench etc.) following the procedure found on the MBUSA CD-ROM.
This has "shaken me up" somewhat, causing me to doubt myself at this point. Problem is, I've already bought the belt tensioner unit for my 300E and was figuring on taking a day after Christmas to do that job myself... now I don't know if I want to tackle it or not.

JEFF -
Wanting to "keep up both of my babies to the best of my ability" I thought that using the synthetic ATF would be better than using the petroleum-based products. I was going to keep the same servicing period but use the synthetic rather than the standard type. I thought that if I might be able to get 10-20K more miles (or more)out of the transmission by using the synthetic then I was ahead of the curve. My wife puts 25K miles on her car a year... the longer it lasts the better I'm gonna like it.

__________________
Jay Yambrovich
Scotts Valley, CA.

1993 300 CE Cabriolet (A124) 131K miles
1997 C-280 133K miles

2000 BMW R1100RT 69K miles
1989 300 E 216K miles (sold)