Valeo strikes again - what to do now??

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Matt's Dad

Active Member
Joined
May 4, 2010
Messages
168
Location
Norfolk
Car
E320CDI W211
I received a call from my Wife yesterday to say that our E320 CDI W211 was stuck at the school carpark, as she had selected reverse, but there wasn't any drive to the wheels.

I went and had a look, and as it had been switched off for a while. I started it, put it into reverse and it all worked fine. I drove it home, and didn't get very far, until the revs started increasing and the power to the wheels was reducing - until there was no drive what so ever.

I don't get to drive the car much, but had noticed a few weeks ago it seemed to rev more when accelerating (using the torque, say from 60 mph upto 80 mph) the needle on the rev counter seemed to stay higher longer, with less acceleration than before............

..........now I know I should have changed the Valeo rad or fitted a seperate gearbox cooler before:doh: :rolleyes: :eek: but since we have had the car I've always had a feeling the gearbox wasn't 100% right (we bought it about a year ago at 170,000 miles and have had the gearbox oil changed twice, as the first change showed it was way past due, car has now covered 200,000 miles) It sounds silly, but as I've worked through the other issues the car has had (cracked springs, steering rack replace, disks and pads replace, enging mounts replace etc. etc.) I thought it would be good to get a gearbox recon at somepoint as we don't plan on selling the car as it fits our needs perfectly - and was leaving the recon until last.......

So (after all my waffle:eek:) what is the best course of action now?? do I just book it into my Local MB stealer and give them the symptoms and see what they say?? or book into an indie?? or send to a place that just specializes in gearbox recon work??

Obviously it may not be the Valeo that has caused the problem - but after reading all the posts on here, it does indicate to a Glycol problem, and probably a Torque Converter issue.....

I'm based on the Norfolk/Suffolk border in East Anglia, but I don't mind taking the car further, if there is someone that can do a good job at a good price, and knows what they are doing, so hopefully we can have the car back fairly soon and working perfectly - so any recomendations will be appreciated
 
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We have done many of these before.

Firstly we need to determine weather there is Glycol in the ATF.

Then repair accordingly.

I suspect as it has done a few miles the gearbox will be well worn. A FULL re-build is going to cost £1500 ish.
 
Thanks Olly, is it something you can do, or know of anywhere that can carry out a full rebuild?? (that is what I would prefer, and hence the reason for leaving it a while until we knew if we going to keep the car or upgrade to a newer one)
 
Sorry, I haven't been on here lately as been busy - but just wanted to say how good the service was from Olly's garage.

I dropped the car off on a Saturday morning, and left it there for Olly to look at the oil etc.......it needed a full gearbox rebuild inc torque convertor - it was all done and ready to be collected by the following Saturday!

The car drives so nice now - better than it ever has since we have owned it - it's smoother and quieter, and much better on Diesel - and feels like it has it's full power and torque back again.

It was well worth spending 2 Saturdays to get the car there and back, even though it ended up being 800 miles in total! The price was good, and the serivce was great - I'll take it back there for the fluid change, so I know it's done properly.

Thanks Olly - another happy customer!

p.s. I made sure my Wife didn't race anyone on the way home!
 

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