Recently Aquired a 2001 VDP with 83K with full service history. No sign in history that trans fluid (ZF-5HP24) was ever changed. I have two trains of thought.
A) Do a Flush and Fill with a competent shop that has the pump to actualy Fush the entire unit and fill with new fluid and do a filter change
B) Do nothing becasue the unit is 17 plus years old

It does shift fine....

Any advice will be greatly apprciated.....



2001 VDP

 

That is a personal decision, ...me, I would change it because your not too far over a standard 60k change standard. Besides, you don't wait for an issue to change something, its basic maintenance. Be sure they use the correct fluid, Mercedes Automatic Transmission Fluid MB Spec 236.14 Red.

 

Well -- I would never flush. I have two X308's one I bought new and one I bought a few years back with 35k knowing the owner ... with no leaks my 70k one is untouched. I know the other was never fooled with as well ..so I'm leaving it alone as it's rarely driven. Both of mine are R's with he Benz transmission .. have other cars with the same box sold off at 150k never have been touched.

You have the ZF box -- the typical problem with them has nothing to do with fluid. IMO -- if you are going to keep the car and put some miles on it ... I would look into the pressure problem before any A drum damage and address that .... the fluid will be done along with the fix. Otherwise if just using for Sunday car -- you may feel better knowing the fluid level is correct. Having it checked and a simple service -- drain and refill may make you feel more secure.

The ZF fluid is available and is all I would use if keeping the vehicle.

 

Dont flush, only a drain and fill, pan which is the filter and a new electric sleeve. You should also update to larger pan bolts

 

O1XJVP, my advice would be to definitely have the transmission "serviced", and by serviced I mean flush and replace the transmission fluid, new filter, and pan gasket, and install the Transgo Pressure Relief Valve upgrade.

I had my 2001 VDP transmission done at 70,000 miles by my local transmission shop, and it certainly needed it, the filter was very dirty. Total cost was $440.00 including the Transgo valve upgrade and fluid etc.

Be sure to only use ZF Lifeguard 5 transmission fluid, it is readily available for around $16.00 a quart, and the transmission take 6-7 quarts.

Here is an excellent forum link to info on the Transgo Valve upgrade...........
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...pgrade-179012/




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Its been 6 years since I did a rebuild on my 98 VDP for an A drum fail (summer 2012). I think a write up I did on the process is still in the archives.

My takeaway after research done at the time was that ZF had made the changeover to the new regulator valve design at some time close to when my car was built.... so it may be that you have the new design and that cause of the A drum fail isn't present. FWIW, I didn't change my valve during the rebuild as the new one was missed on the order for parts and I elected to re-assemble the VB with the existing valve - no issues since and the car is now at 168K miles.

As others have said, the replacement is easy, especially you decide to do a fluid & filter replacement and needs no special tools. If you do go that route, I'd suggest replacing the Torx head machine screws that hold the pan on with hex heads. It only costs a few $$ at the local Fastenal or equivalent and avoids any future issues with a stripped head, which is easy to do on a Torx screw in my experience.

For fluid, there are lots of options to source the OE fluid as the ZF box was used by many makers (Jag, BMW, VW/Audi, Land Rover and others all used the ZF box). As a paranoiac, after reading lots of posts about the question of lifetime fills and no dipstick, I did a fluid change in 2006 and bought the Esso Spec fluid then - I found the price at the time was best at the local VW/Audi dealer.

However, after a lot of reading, on my rebuild in 2012, II opted to go with Castrol Multi Vehicle ATF and have had no issues. As an OCD engineer, all my research when preparing for the rebuild indicated that transmission fluid changes are not as critical as you might think. Unless you have reason to think that there has been a significant event that could have caused an issue (like serious overheating, signs of leakage, transmission operating issues like slippage), IMO there is little risk that he fluid has gone to the dark side and needs replacement.

However, if If you do decide to go the replacement route, I've attached a photo of my high tech filling equipment. If you have ever replaced gear lube on the lower end of an outboard, you likely have all it takes. If not the pump is only a few dollars.

 

A properly done fluid refresh w/ the correct fluid is obviously not going to hurt anything .. more important is making sure the level is correct. If you do refresh: use the correct fluid. There is so much debate over fluid -- it's so easy to get the ZF lifeguard. No thoughts or worries.

My company has a fleet of vehicles. Have bought many hundreds of cars over the past almost 30 years. We have never had one where we could trace a transmission failure to fluid .. except one where an accident pinched a fluid line. Part of our inspection at oil change time is checking closely for any fluid leaks around the transmission .... modern transmissions must have the correct level. The vast majority of our cars are sold off around 200k w the original transmission .... we had some failures with our ear 2000 Lexus vehicles because many of the cars lasted to 250k ...

 

I can certainly attest to fluid level. I'm at 206k miles, and the only issue I ever had with shifting - granted, I have the R with the merc - was due to being just a tad low on fluid. Once I brought it back up, the transmission is working flawlessly again. And I know it's never been flushed in it's lifetime.

 

But that is the MB tranny, a different apple among oranges.


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The MB is a robust transmission -- it was the only one available for the R's power .. they also used in other vehicles ...my 996tt tip had the transmission. The early ones (pre 2000) did have a bearing issue. The ZF box unfortunately also has a weak point .. but seems to be reliable once fixed .... its not a fluid problem.

 

Like most hi tech designs, the ZF box had a few things that were changed over the production life. My reading found that the weakest spot seemed to be the A Drum, followed by the F drum.

My reading found several possible causes linked to the A Drum issue, and possibly to the F drum as well. They included:

1. the pressure regulator in early VB iterations. As I recall the issue was scoring that caused pressure spikes. The redesign of the regulator was, in part at least, to address that.
2. The A drum itself was modified, the lip of the drum was beefed up, presumably to handle the loads that caused the ring to fail at the outer lip.
3. An extra oil way was added to the A drum shaft just below the drum.

As I recall, all of these fixes had been made by / during the production for 99 or 00 model year cars.

Re fluid levels - agree with the comments. Trannies live or die by the fluid level and issues are likely to arise if the level drops below the minimum. There is a good ZF writeup on the methodology for filling that was in the archives. It's not a difficult job, but does highlight how important it is to fill at the correct transmission fluid temp, which is below normal operating temp. I found that it only took a few minutes for the temps to rise above the fill temp spec and made it easy to result in an incorrect fill level. Not a difficult job by any stretch, but one that I found was more easily done with 2 people as that allowed the filling to complete in one go. When doing it on my own, I found that any need to reposition or change to a new bottle of fluid added enough time to the process that it became a multi step process.

If nothing else, the ZF manual gives the criteria to check your levels to make sure they are OK. That check only takes a few minutes, even if you are doing it with the vehicle on ramps so you can get underneath for access.

One thing I think is essential is to make sure any added fluid is the same as what is in the box already. When I did my 2006 change, as the pan drain and re-fill only replaces ~50% of the fluid, I made sure I went with the OE spec. On the rebuild, with a dry transmission, I was OK with changing to the Castrol as it kept the fluid 100% the same. While it is prob OK to replace with fluids that are stated to comply with the Esso spec, IMO the savings aren't worth the risk - As the saying goes "you pay your money and take your chances"