First, Bill, I never mentioned this to you over the past 10 years, but my father-in-law is Dr. David H. Choi, who used your dealership for years, first with his 240D and then with his grey market 500SEL imported from Germany. (small world, eh?)
Well, my mother-in-law passed away unexpectedly, and sadly my father-in-law cannot drive anymore so he passed on his 1985 500sel to us. It is a beautiful car and I want to keep it.
I use Mercedes Benz of Devon for my 95 E320 wagon who are well-acquainted with you BTW and highly recommend your service.
The 500SEL has less than 70,000 miles. Since acquiring ownership in October, I have only driven it from Princeton to Newtown Square once. There seemed to be a LOT of red fluid under the car in Princeton. The transmission gave me no problem on the easy drive (and believe me, I did not push it much as I wanted to) . I let it sit in my (one-car) garage here and it seemed to leak a lot more red fluid over the next two months.
Now to the questions.
1) The car must be inspected in pennsylvania. 2) I believe the 500 SEL is leaking ATF (as the brake fluid level seems stable). 3) how do I check the ATF level? i.e., where the hell is it? 4) if I can't, should I have it trailered to the local dealer ? 5) If I can, what type of fluid and how much should I add (dealer sezs dextron 2, and to only add like 1/2 quart). where do I fill it? 6) Unfortunately, life has gotten much more complicated and the car is now sitting outside. Should I rent a storage space for it? Or is a car cover enough? I won't be driving it much in the salt-water solution called roads here.7) my father-in-law (whose memory is at best can be considered of dubious worth) claims that you tried to fix the leak twice and failed. Is it even worth trying to fix again?
The leak does seem to emanate from the front (not the back, which I guess is the transaxle).
8) Mercedes Benz of Devon will take a shot at fixing it, but I know they will cost more and I don't really know if they can fix it better than you.Bill, we vacation annually in AC and it would be no problem to drop the car off with you for a week (if of course I can get it there safely).
Thanks for your time and effort.