hi everybody,

im new to the forum and i had a test drive yesterday in a mercedes e class e320cdi auto. it was cold when i drove it and when i drove off the gears did not go higher than 3rd (max fourth) even on a straight road. after three miles i pulled over and turned the engine off and back on again and everything was fine. hope you can give me some advise.

I've seen plenty of transmission quirks/strange behavior on newer MB's, but hanging up in the wrong gear isn't one of them. Is it possible that you accidentally bumped the shifter while you were driving? If you did, you might have noticed the indicator in the instrument cluster showing a "3" instead of "D".