alexar
New Member
Hi all and thanks for letting me in. Looking for opinions on my 2010 C250 petrol 5 speed auto box, which has a fault.
Briefish tale of woe: it drove absolutely fine - box changing lovely as it always has, zero funny noises, jerks etc - onto the poole-cherbourg ferry. Came to drive it off in France and everything behaves as expected but no forward or reverse drive. All positions selectable with correct dash indications, no warning lights, no funny noises but it just apparently stays in neutral (park doesn't work either, car is pushable in all gear selector positions).
Green Flagged it to a French garage (well, recovery firm basically, it seems). Had to get the insurance firm to nag them for a diagnostic. All they had to show was to say that the gearbox makes loud noises and needs replacing. Not true - it is silent, as I said. They offered no code readings, no measurement of fluid, no checking linkages, nothing but the nonsense about loud noises. They recommended repatriating it. Fine by me and that's the route we are pursuing.
So it seems to me this may be mostly likely be either the linkage fault that is sometimes mentioned, or an issue in the cpu needing a reset, or just possibly low fluid or a leak - no signs of this however and it was serviced by a local garage 500 miles ago so should have been checked, and anyhow no symptoms at all till it failed.
I did turn the alarms off on the ferry. Is there some weird immobiliser thing that just works on the gearbox? Btw the engine still starts and runs lovely.
Any ideas or advice very welcome. Be gentle though, I had a stressful weekend! I can't believe a box can fail that way and need replacing, surely there would be some warning symptom? Or are the French right? Suspect the garage don't want the hassle and would prefer the insurance pays to repatriate it than I pay them to fix it.
Briefish tale of woe: it drove absolutely fine - box changing lovely as it always has, zero funny noises, jerks etc - onto the poole-cherbourg ferry. Came to drive it off in France and everything behaves as expected but no forward or reverse drive. All positions selectable with correct dash indications, no warning lights, no funny noises but it just apparently stays in neutral (park doesn't work either, car is pushable in all gear selector positions).
Green Flagged it to a French garage (well, recovery firm basically, it seems). Had to get the insurance firm to nag them for a diagnostic. All they had to show was to say that the gearbox makes loud noises and needs replacing. Not true - it is silent, as I said. They offered no code readings, no measurement of fluid, no checking linkages, nothing but the nonsense about loud noises. They recommended repatriating it. Fine by me and that's the route we are pursuing.
So it seems to me this may be mostly likely be either the linkage fault that is sometimes mentioned, or an issue in the cpu needing a reset, or just possibly low fluid or a leak - no signs of this however and it was serviced by a local garage 500 miles ago so should have been checked, and anyhow no symptoms at all till it failed.
I did turn the alarms off on the ferry. Is there some weird immobiliser thing that just works on the gearbox? Btw the engine still starts and runs lovely.
Any ideas or advice very welcome. Be gentle though, I had a stressful weekend! I can't believe a box can fail that way and need replacing, surely there would be some warning symptom? Or are the French right? Suspect the garage don't want the hassle and would prefer the insurance pays to repatriate it than I pay them to fix it.
