Engines and transmissions

[guest]

Hi. Just a few comments on our 2006 Sterling Acterra with the Mercedes MBE 900 engine and the Allison MB automatic. We wish we'd done a bit more homework before buying this truck instead of just asking the sales people about maintenence costs and parts availability, and of course getting a positive answer on costs. Imagine our shock when we found out you can't just go to Speedco for a PM that costs $100! Since Mercedes won't release the patent on the filters, there are no Fleetguard, Baldwin or any other crossovers, and amazingly the filters are all cartridges instead of spin-ons, but are much more expensive. I've never seen such flimsy, cheap looking things, and don't really trust them to filter well, but that's all there is. The 2 fuel and 2 oil filters cost around $75, if you want to buy them from a Freightliner dealer and then go to Speedco to actually get the service done. Then they will knock about $15 off the cost of the service for supplying your own filters, and you can get it done for about $125 plus the $75 you already paid for the filters.

The other option is to go to a dealer, where we have so far paid anywhere from $235 to $255 for an oil change on an engine that holds just 32 quarts of oil. By comparison the C-15 Cats we had usually cost about $140 with 4 filters and 44 quarts of oil.

As far as the Allison automatic, it is convenient in traffic and drives like a pickup truck, but we sometimes miss the control over gear ranges we had with a standard. I think we could get much better fuel mileage shifting ouselves, since it winds itself way tighter before shifting than we ever would and suddenly downshifts when you don't really need it to.

Again, we were dismayed to find out the service intervals and costs of changing the transmission fluid. The filters are $100 and it holds over 14 quarts of fluid, and is supposed to be done every 40,000 miles. I think we could buy Dexron III at Walmart for $12 a gallon, but the dealership charges about $35 a gallon!! We were thankful ours wasn't ordered with synthetic when we were told changing that would cost around $700!!

I'm pretty sure the next time we trade, we will have a friendly little Cat and a manual transmission.

 

[redytrk]

Speedco will do the oil change if you provide the filters. Be sure to also carry the proper Metric Allen Wrench for the drain plug.Dont let those monkeys put a SAE in there,they will ruin it every time

 

[davekc]

We like the Sterlings but opted for the C9 Cat. If you don't like how it is shifting, you can go to a Allison dealer and have them check the programming. There are some parameters that they can adjust. Must be done by them so you don't void your warranty. We had a M2 reprogrammed and it made a world of difference. It cost 129.00 to reset the parameters and add a sixth gear. It was originally set as a 5 speed? No clue why as we bought it used.





Davekc
owner
22 years
PantherII
EO moderator

 

[NEVERHOME247]

You should be able to get your MB900 serviced at SPEEDCO. We take our's to SPEEDCO all the time. Only filter they don't carry is the centrifugal oil filter (spin filter) We carry the spin filter with us. But they have the other oil filter and the fuel filter. Is a good idea to invest in the metric allen socket that fits the oil drain plug. Because I will say alot of the SPEEDCO locations. Seem to not have the correct socket. As far as the transmission. We run synthetic (TRANSYN) It is very expensive. But you only have to change every 150K.