E230 Auto box overhaul

[tonye230]

I bought my E230 a year ago with 67448 miles on the clock. I have always had a occasional problem when pulling away from traffic lights or roundabouts
that it felt the gear seemed to jump in and gave a kick up the backside.
Then recently the auto box went completely haywire changing up and down even when do 30 or 40 MPH on straight road. So I took it to my local Merc Indy garage and got them to change trans fluid and filter I had read on this site that Mercedes are now recommending changing it at 60000 miles. They said that the problem was most likely to be oil leaking on to the electrical switch which was a common fault on this auto box and they replaced it. However this made no difference and the box went into get you home mode meaning it would only select second gear and I was unable to use the manual selection. The Indy dealer said it would have to go to a autobox specialist and put me in touch with Technical Automatic Services West Mersea Nr Colchester Essex. When I phoned them they said they did all Merc dealers auto boxes in the south east and even went as far as Ireland to collect cars from Merc dealers. They arranged to pick up car on a trailer and have a look at it and said I could have courtesy car If required . They phoned me to say that a rear bearing had gone and metal filing had got on the magnetic valves and this had caused the problem. They said they would have to remove, overhaul and refit and when they did this they replaced any parts with the latest updated parts and said they had sourced their own gaskets as the Merc ones were useless hence leaks onto switches. They then took it to Mercedes in Ipswich to have the codes reset as they had most codes but not this model. Brought it back today on trailer and gave driver a cheque. It seems to be back to normal now and has not jumped and changes are very smoothly.

Cost :- Overhaul transmission £1535.00
Remove and refit £ 365.00
Fluid £ 90.00
Total including vat £ 1990.00

They have Web site www.auto-transmissions.co.uk

Hoping this might be helpful to anyone with simular problems.

Tony
Colchester Essex UK

 

[Parrot of Doom]

Thats actually not too painful. If you remove the VAT (I'm VAT registered so would be able to), its pretty good service.

 

[jberks]

Odd failure at that mileage.
From memory, the E230 has the non tiptronic box so never came under the sealed for life recommendation. I know the 4speed boxes of that era had oil changes at 40k - not sure what the recommendations for your box were though.
I assume that at the age and mileage, its a low use town car and this is a very good example of how low mileage isn't always a good thing.
Anyway Tony, glad to hear that it's all better now.I can't comment on the price except to say that it seems a tad high to me, especially the removal and refit bit. I'd expect it to take around 1hr for a decent mechanic to drop an auto box from a rwd car and a similar time to refit. At that rate a dealer would be struggling to approach that price at £100ph. A mechanic who only does gearboxes should be less that 1/2 that. However, I don't know for sure. We had a box done on an E280, admittedly over 10 years ago, but the bill for a full rebuild was around £750 at the time, all in.

In any case, all info is useful so thanks for the post.

 

[tonye230]

More on E230 Auto box

The gearbox is the 97 model so has 5 speed and is sealed for life type.

Even so I agree 70000 miles is low for a failure of this type.

Have had three other NON Mercedes autos and each did over 100,000 miles

no problems. Fluid changes were recommended on these as 20,000 miles or 2 years

and my brothers Ford Mondeo has done over 110,000 no problems.

Dosn't say much for Mercedes.

If mercedes had done same the autobox my still be ok ???

Forget to say that Technical Automatic Services Ltd gave a 12 month or 12000 miles Warranty

 

[Parrot of Doom]

Maybe the person before you was towing things regularly. Or maybe the car was towed from the roadside instead of being lifted. Or driven very hard from cold all its life.

Then again, it may just have been a manufacturing fault. You'll never know.

 

[television]

Odd failure at that mileage.
From memory, the E230 has the non tiptronic box so never came under the sealed for life recommendation. I know the 4speed boxes of that era had oil changes at 40k - not sure what the recommendations for your box were though.
I assume that at the age and mileage, its a low use town car and this is a very good example of how low mileage isn't always a good thing.
Anyway Tony, glad to hear that it's all better now.I can't comment on the price except to say that it seems a tad high to me, especially the removal and refit bit. I'd expect it to take around 1hr for a decent mechanic to drop an auto box from a rwd car and a similar time to refit. At that rate a dealer would be struggling to approach that price at £100ph. A mechanic who only does gearboxes should be less that 1/2 that. However, I don't know for sure. We had a box done on an E280, admittedly over 10 years ago, but the bill for a full rebuild was around £750 at the time, all in.

In any case, all info is useful so thanks for the post.

I also thought it was a bit on the high side when I first saw it. In 2000 I had a Saab box rebuilt for £1100. Anyway it going OK thats the main thing.

Malcolm