Hi All, Here's my story... I have an 86 420SEL that my father gave me before he passed away. He was the original owner and hardly drove it. The car was garaged since the day he brought it home and only has 68k miles. The car is in beautiful condition in and out except for one problem. It has no 2nd gear. It runs and drives fine but will shift from 1st to 3rd bypassing 2nd. When in third and I try to accelerate, and it downshifts to 2nd, the engine will just rev. Could it be something easy to fix or will it require a rebuild?

I took it toa couple of places and they all say the tranny needs to be replaced at a cost of 3k and up. I took it to 2 independents, a transmission specialist, and the dealer who wanted $5k. None suggested a teardown and fix of what I have....it would cost the same??????

I'm trying to see if there are other less expensive options as I would like to keep the car but cannot afford to dump in 3k. I've already spent almost 4k replacing all the brake pads,rotors,brake lines, master cylinder, shocks, springs, wheels and tiresthinking that this thing will last a long time but one
thing keeps happening after another.
I'm in San Francisco if anyone would like to suggest a good mechanic. Thanks!! Sorry for the long post.