Had a transmission failure while 550 miles from home over the holidays. I was loaded up and ready to head home when I encountered the problem. The transmission slipped under load at highway speed. I shut it off and restarted it and it repeated the failure a couple of times. I did get a CEL.

After about 30 phone calls from the side of the road to MBUSA, Mercedes dealers (nearest 50 miles away), franchises and trusted friends in the area, I had it flat bedded to an indie transmission specialist in that area. Decided on the indie guy because he sounded like he knew what he was doing, he told me he had worked on ML transmissions multiple times in the past, and I am hopeful his repair charge will be on the lower end of my $2K to $6K expectation.

The vehicle is a 99 ML 320 with 185K miles. I am the original owner and it has never had any tranny problems or work before. I've searched this forum and understand it is probably typical for the ML 320 tranny to fail at this mileage (if not sooner.)

I borrowed another vehicle to come home so I have to handle this over the phone. Just talked to the mechanic and he has taken the pan off. He told me 4th gear is "burned out" and the paper from the failure clogged the filter. He said the other three gears are OK. He is gathering prices so he can present me with options.

Sounds like my options will be:
* used tranny (from a wrecked ML ?)
* remanufactured tranny from someone other than Mercedes
* remanufactured tranny from Mercedes
* new tranny from Mercedes (?)

Obviously warranty and expected life will be compared to price for each option. Warranty is a key issue since it would be very inconvenient to take it 550 miles for remedial service.

I don't have any specific questions at this point but I would appreciate your collective advice / experiences / wisdom / prayers (especially if anything I've told you doesn't sound right.)