The switch is for KickDown. There are two ways that the 190 Tranny will downshift, one is the Bowden cable which will drop the tranny one gear. The other is the KickDown Switch that activates the KickDown Solenoid on the tranny. This will drop it to the lowest possible gear for the given speed. About 3/4 throttle will drop it to 1st after a short delay. Full floor and activate the switch and you get a quicker drop down but still delayed. Put the shifter down to 2 and then back to D while stopped will drop the tranny to 1st as well. That way you actually start in 1st instead of rolling a few feet in 2nd then the abrupt drop down to 1st. This was changed around 1992 in the W201 and the tranny in those starts in 1st. Newer MB's have a switch on the center console for Winter and Sport mode, Winter starts in 2nd and has a 2nd Reverse gear as well. Summer or Sport starts in 1st and has higher shift points. The 190 does not have this and by design starts in 2nd for the ealier vehicles.

If you have a hesitation off start then it could be your mixture is too lean, in which you can richen the base mixture a hair to give you better take offs. But if you got the shakes as well then you could have any number of issues, from a vacuum leak to bad plugs, wires, cap and rotor, to a bad O2. Check the plugs and cap and rotor and the O2 sensor as well and visually check all rubber vacuum connectors for dry rot and cracking. Then if all that is good we will move on to the other stuff it could be.

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~Jamie
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2003 Pewter C230K SC C1, C4, C5, C7, heated seats, CD Changer, and 6 Speed. ContiExtremes on the C7's.

1986 190E 2.3 Black, Auto, Mods to come soon.....