I recently purchased my 97 S320. Noticed a few minor problems and have posted about them. This one I have not asked about till now cause it didn't really bother me at first. When I cold start the car and drive it away it does not shift gears for the first few minutes. Once I get it out to the main road it shifts fine and continues to do so the rest of the day. Park it, let it sit over night and it does the same thing in the morning. Is this normal?

That is a normal condition only on a cold startup. Pre heating of the catalytic converter.

I have the '97 C230 with the 5-speed electronic transmission. Mine does that too -- that is, the shift from 3rd to 4th is delayed, and the engine revs to 2200 rpm or so for a short time, until the engine is warmed a bit. It's described in my owner's manual as normal. From what I've read here, if your transmission has the W/S selector switch by the shift gate, it's the 5-speed. Make sure the switch is on S, or the car will start in 2nd gear from a stop and the car will feel like a dog.

Last month I'd accidentally put the switch to W, and the first shift, normally delayed by the transmission for warm-up purposes, was so weird I thought something was going wrong inside the box. Switched back to S and all is well.

__________________
* *
-- Paul W. (The Benzadmiral)
('03 Buick Park Avenue, charcoal/cream)
Formerly:
'97 C230, smoke silver/parchment; '86 420SEL, anthracite/light grey; '84 280CE (W123), dark blue/palomino

Well it seems like it wont shift at all but once I get her to 2500-3000 rpms it WILL shift. I just dont get go that high in my subdivision with the speed bumps but once I get it on the main road it shifts fine. The rest of the day it works great. Thanks to all for letting me know. This kinda worried me and I'm definately comforted to know this is probably a normal thing for these cars.

Probably a good idea to go through the owner's manual -- lots of useful info in there...

__________________
Steve
'93 400E

Cars with 119/120 engines will delay an up shift /No up shift on a cold start up.
For 160sec and111/104 engines for 80 sec.