Recently bought this car - has a whine - which sounds like the diff at 75-85mph - annoying particularly as this is my sort of motorway cruising speed. Whine goes away on overrun or acceleration.
From service record, diff seals were replaced and diff oil at 54000 miles, 2 years ago.
Car now at 67000 miles.
I would have thought the diffs on these cars would be good for 200K.. I wonder if the oil level had got seriously low with the leaking seals, damaging the diff.
So choices:
Put up with it
Replace oil again - with Molyslip?
Have diff rebuilt
Find a 2nd hand diff
when i changed the oil in my 32 it takes 44 ozs. i drained 30 out. 14 ozs. low at 36k!!!
the oil also had the consistency of water. replaced with mobil 1 l/s 75/90 synthetic gear oil.
i would change the fluid to start as its the cheapest easiest repair to do http://www.benzworld.org/forums/r170-slk-class/1388722-differential-fluid-exchange.html link you can use
I have the same whine in my diff. Right around 75 to 80 mph. Just the slightest touch on the accelerator pedal and I can set the whine up. Release the pedal and the whine goes away. Hard acceleration and the whine lessens.
I spoke with my indy and before I finished my sentence he did that for me. He said out in his parking lot he would find a certain percentage of those cars that have a differential that whine. Not all that uncommon.
I spoke with the service guy at a M/B dealership. Before they would do anything he asked that first the following is done: remove the diff pan and look for metal shavings, replace the fluid and rotate tires. I replaced the fluid and drove the car. Whine is still there. I am not going to remove the pan as that requires removing the diff. I felt inside the drain area in the diff, smooth as glass no metal fragments.
The diff from M/B is ~$1,400.00 with about 4 to 5 hours labor, Total ~$2,000.00. This to fix a whine that occurs at around 75 to 80mph and magically disappears when the top is down or windows are down.
My Indy also said a rebuilt diff will probably humm as well. So live with it or shell out some serious cash. I think I may wait a while on this repair.
In high school driving junks we used to regularly employ the audio mechanic. Turn up the tunes real loud until a rattle, rubbing noise or whatever is drowned out.
Driving the SLK topless on the highway or with the windows down is my audio mechanic. Simply drowns out the whine.
But, I took my problem to the M/B dealership today and scheduled an appointment for Monday. The service manager, from my description, cannot tell if it is the differential or the center driveshaft bearing. I’ll bet anyone six pack it is the diff. On Monday they will listen with a remote microphone first attached to the center bearing and then again attached to the differential.
If the diff is the source of the sound the Service Manager indicated that M/B would be willing to pay the part and I would pay the labor.
The car is a 2004 SLK 320 with 54.7Kk miles on it. The VMI indicates the car has been faithfully maintained by M/B. He thought that was important.
I took the ’04 SLK 320 to the M/B Dealership today to investigate the whine. They took the car out on the road with listening devices attached to the center bearing and differential. Later I received a call from the service manager and he said M/B will cover the cost of the part, diff. I will pay labor ~5 hours @ $120.00. The service manager also noted that while he is performing the repair he makes not guarantee that the noise will not return. Nice, eh. $57K car and we can’t seem to make a diff that doesn’t hum like a tuning fork.
So I’ll pick the car up Thursday. Not so bad though. See what happens.
when they replace that i dont think it will come back soon these parts are really durable for a long time before it starts going bad, the only thing i can think about that can damage it is when its low in fluid or water gets in, goodluck keep us posted on the results
when i changed my diff fluid at 40k it was 14 ozs. low. as far as i know it was never touched from new. i have no issues but im glad to know i now have the proper amount of new synthetic mobil 1 in the diff
5 hours of labor at $120.00/hour later and the whine is gone. Mercedes picked up the cost of the differential.
Good ending, I guess.
Thanks,
Zill.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Mercedes-Benz Forum
7.6M posts
693.6K members
Since 1999
BenzWorld.org forum is one of the largest Mercedes-Benz owner websites offering the most comprehensive collection of Mercedes-Benz information anywhere in the world. The site includes MB Forums, News, Galleries, Publications, Classifieds, Events and much more!