Hi,
I have a 1987 300E that occasionally when first started shudders or even stalls at the beginning. However, if I give it gas and fight through the shuddering it runs fine with no problems after that. Also if it does stall it is difficult to start and requires a lot of pushing on the gas pedal to get started. Any ideas what this could be?

Thanks

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your car is fuel-injected, no? If so, depressing the pedal would do nothing to assist in starting your car...that's carb territory.

When mine did that, a new set of plugs cured it instantly...

__________________
2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

Even though the KE system doesn't have an accelerator pump, pumping the throttle will actually add additional fuel if the engine is running because of the mechanical connection between the air flow plate and fuel meter.

Is the ABS light on? Assuming this is a cold start issue, it could be an OVP problem since the the OVP provides power to the KE and ABS electronics. OVP relays are known to act "flaky" due to intenal bad solder joints.

If there is no power to the KE system, none of the cold start features are active, so the car can be hard if not impossible to cold start.

Duke