Are Valeo Radiators still causing problems.

steveE250

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W208 CLK 320, S202 C240 sport.
Hi. My old trusty C250 turbo estate is no more and today I went to view a C220CDI estate. The car in question is from back in 2001 and has just about every extra going.A full MB history and more recently MB specialist service history. 130K miles and a price tag of £1350 I took the car for about a 8 to 10 mile test drive and apart from a slightly rough down change all seemed Good. I agreed to buy the car today if the dealer could deliver it to my house. The dealer rang me about the time I was expecting him to arrive at my house. He said that about 10 miles into the journey the car seemed to jump out of gear so he was turning around and driving to the independent MB garage where it had come from as an unwanted part ex.
I remember there was an issue with Valeo rads leaking glycol into the transmission years ago and wondered if that was still happening 15 or more years later.The dealer said he would let me know what the problem seemed to be. My instinct is to walk away but i did like the car. also I do need another estate car and mercs that I can afford seem in very short supply within range of where I live.
According to the service book the car had a service at MB specialists two thousand miles earlier. I would hope they checked the ATF level then.
I guess that what I am asking is, is there anything apart from low atf that might cause "jumping out of gear" that I could afford to fix.
 

malcolm E53 AMG

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Glycol contamination affected the torque converter symptoms were a droning under light load nothing as dramatic as jumping out of gear. I would walk away feeling lucky that I hadn’t parted with cash
 
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steveE250

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W208 CLK 320, S202 C240 sport.
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Thanks Malcolm. I think you are right. that is my instinct too. Its just that apart from the gearbox problem it was lovely.
 

malcolm E53 AMG

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You’d probably have to factor in a gearbox refurb at circa £1300 to get where you wanted to be with it, only you can decide whether it’s worth doing, of course that is worse case scenario
 

JBell

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Torquey
Your Mercedes
C350 CDi Estate (GAD Edition)
Check the entire car for rust, that era are terrible for it, also check for a very smoky exhaust as the inlet manifolds go and that is a £700 job
 

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