I will admit to being totally mistified by this whole transmission thing. To me, sealed for "life" means it's sealed and should never fail as long as it is driven withing the stated parameters. Now I am seeing experts telling us that a "newer" MB will only get ~125,000 miles on a tranny. That seems awfully short. My '90 420SEL had 197,000 and was in great shape, my '72 280 SEL 4.5 has 176,000 and the tranny is tight as a drum......hell, my '87 Chevy Blazer has 190,000 and it spends much of its life bashing through the Arizona mountains and deserts.

The key (at least I thought) was to change tranny oil every year. Now MB is saying never change the oil, and Oh Yeah, it will run for life but life seems to mean ~125,000 miles. If you do change oil use MB....if not it will fail. I'm sorry folks, but there seems like a disconnect here.......I must be missing something 'cause this makes no sense.

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Litton
'90 420 SEL (sold)
'72 280 SEL 4.5
'98 ML320 (for sale)
'86 560SL
'05 Jeep Grand Cherokee Ltd (offroad in style)
'87 Chevy Blazer (AZ Pin Strips)