I hope this proves as helpful as www.914club.com is for my 914-6. My E400 has a transmission problem: Have to drive about a mile before it will shift. Worse when cold out. Even when warmed up, it will often run to high RPMs in first gear and then shift to third. No second. Other times it does 1, 2 to 3 as it should. Any suggestions on where to look?

Is this car new to you? These cars have an upshift delay feature, which delays the 2-3 upshift to 3000 rpm when the engine is cold. A mile sounds about right. This design feature helps emissions by warming up the catalytic converter more quickly. Is this what you're experiencing?

Welcome to the forum. This is the best one for Mercedes.

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95 E320 Cabriolet, 159K

maybe related. but it won't shift from 1 at all until warm up. then, even after driving all day, often, but not always, it will skip 2 and go directly from 1 to 3, which would not be too bad, but it goes to very high rpms before it does it. other times it goes 1, 2, 3 exactly as it should. very curious intermittant problem. has my good mechanic stumpted, too.

Friend,
This trans. should start from a stop in second unless floored. It is a four speed trans. At the rear of the trans. a single wire connects the kickdown solenoid. Disconnect the wire and see if the problem goes away. Also, you could disconnect the "downshift cable" (or for the UK blokes...Bowden cable).
with cable disconnected it should upshift at low speeds ie. no throttle.
g'luck.
dpk
Oh yeah,btw does it have a "B" on the selector lever?