First post / first gear

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Slowhand

New Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2016
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1
Car
Vito Dualiner
Hi. I run a small business and bought a '55 Vito Dualiner as my car and works van. It does everything! Kids school run, dogs in the back, delivering & collecting goods, its Auto trans.....and I got the VAT back as its a commercial.
Ticked every box for me. Perfect. 10 years old now with 98k and might be looking to upgrade but to the same thing (only newer) as its so good at everything I need to do.

I'm into bikes and Yank cars (Mustangs) too as a hobby. Anyone else?

I have never owned a Merc car (sorry) but I'm a big fan of the Vito believing it to be the best van/car crossover available.

Had a few issues rear & front springs have all given up since I've had it & needed replacement (is this usual?)

Yesterday though had a new problem - its stuck in first gear (no warning lights though). First time it happened I 'rebooted' it and the problem went away for a while but now its back and looks like its a permanent fault.
It lurches into gear and I suspected low oil level but cant find a dipstick or any other reference to 'gearbox oil' in any handbook. How do you check the gearbox oil? Surely it doesn't use the engine oil in the gearbox???
I've read somewhere that you need a special tool to check gearbox oil level but is that the transverse or in line Vito? Mine is RWD.

Has the gearbox had it and I'm in for a £ grand+ spend? :(

Any ideas?
Suggestions appreciated - Cheers
 
You have a W639 Vito (the W638 is the previous shape FWD one). Rear springs are fairly common - ours is on about 72k miles now and had one go last year. Front springs less so but I suspect those are partly down to how/where the van has been driven e.g. 40 mph over speed humps etc. wouldn't help!

Generally speaking on M-Bs the ATF level can't be checked without buying a specific dipstick and knowing where to put it :D The gearbox is intended to be a 'sealed' item that isn't touched apart from a fluid drain/replace every 40-50k miles.

Hopefully yours will be OK with a fluid top-up or flush ... you can get a dipstick from eBay etc. e.g.

Mercedes Jeep Chrysler Dodge Gearbox Automatic Transmission Dipstick 1200mm NEWS | eBay

Failing that you can get the fault codes read - gearbox problems often aren't shown on the instrument cluster but are still logged.
 

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