The car is a 1988 190E 2.3 with 135,000 miles. Though the 1-2 shift has always been hard, the unit did upshift and downshift fine. Until last week. Without any symptoms, the trans now wants to, "most of the time", start out in 2. Under light throttle, the 2-3 and 3-4 shifts are fine. If I use heavy throttle from stopped, the car will start out in 2 and then abruptly downshift to 1 and then immediately upshift to 2, with both the downshift and upshift being "hard". You can re-set the trans to start out in 1 by moving the shift lever to park and then back into drive, but downshifts thereafter are only down to the 2 gear.

Does anyone have any idea of what the cause could be and how to repair it?

All mercedes of that era start of in 2. It wasn't until 94 I think that they started allowing these cars to start in 1st. Do a search here for more info.

Yal,

Thanks for your reply. My 87 300E did start out in second; but, I assumed that the 190E would start out in first since there is so little torque available from the four cylinder.

Assuming you are corrrect, in that the trans should start out in second, there are two questions:

1. When the car starts out in 2nd, acceleration is a lot slower than I am used to seeing in this car. Perhaps there is another reason for the loss in power (I assumed that it was due to starting out in the higher gear). Perhaps you could comment on that.

2. If the normal mode is to start out in 2nd gear, then something has changed that forces the car to abruptly downshift into first. This condition just started happening over the last month. Could that be a transmission issue or perhaps a linkage problem? If it could be a linkage problem, what should I look for?

Except for the 1-2 shift phenomina, the trans seems to work fine.

Any help would be appreciated. Incidentally, I did do a search and most of the problems in the archives were around the B2 valve issue.

Low fluid level or old fluid could cause the trans to act up. Or you could have a vacumn leak.

But my guess would be that your pedal is depressing the kickdown switch behind the pedal and maybe the pedal needs an adjustment.