Hey Guys,

I have a 1984 Mercedes 300D with an automatic transmission. When I received the car, the previous owner had the trans service at a reputable indy Benz mechanic not too long before I got the car. Based on the service, I know they would've had to put fluid back in the trans. Stupidly, I never thought to check the trans fluid because of this. This is my mistake.

I recently have been checking on different things. I know there is a great deal of trouble measuring the trans fluid in these cars as seen in the many threads I've read on it. Apparently you have to get the trans up to operating temp, then pull it through all of the gears, then let it sit and let the fluid settle, but there is a great deal of debate on how long that takes, etc.

I also read that a lot of people found that you can just measure the fluid level when everything is cold, and that it should come up about 10mm below the lowest level line.

I went out and checked mine, and much to my surprise/horror, the level is like 30mm above the max line. And that's with the trans cold. I don't know how they could've messed up that bad. I assume they filled it to capacity of trans and torque converter without draining the torque converter.

I'm going to get a new trans filter and put new fluid in at the correct level. My concern is I've been driving like this for a good while.

As of right now, it seems to be okay. It shifts well, shifts are a bit stiff and downshifts are clunky. I'm pretty sure that's more to do with my vacuum system though. First off, is it possible my cold fluid reading could be off? And on top of that, could my transmission be damaged from this?

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1984 Mercedes-Benz 300D