I recently purchased a new member to my Mercedes Family, a 86 300E.
Problem number 1. Shortly after this purchase, I noticed the transmission would not always back up when placed in reverse. When the transmission does engage, there is no slippage. I have changed the fluid and filter(which was extremely clogged) This helped, it almost always pulls in reverse now.
Problem number 2. Since changing the Transmission filter, it seems the transmission is changing gears at a higher RPM than before. It still changes firmly, but at a higher RPM.

Could this be related to the Modulator Valve, or perhaps some dirt in the system that was not caught by the previous filter.

Please let me know your thoughts.

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300SDL
300E
300D
240D

If your filter was that bad, you could have some other stuff floating around inside the tranny. Before taking the leap into the money pit, I would change the filter and fluid again, adding a trans conditioning additive. Run it about 500 miles, drain and change again. Make sure you also drained the convertor as well That component holds a ton of oil. It does no good to drain the pan and leave half the oil capacity of the tranny in the converter. Good Luck..

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Jeff Lawrence
1987 300e
1989 300e
1987 BMW 325

As JEFFSR said, drain the converter too. It holds more fluid than the pan, at least in some MB cars.

I've experienced similar problems over the yrs. with non-MB cars. It took SEVERAL drain/refills of the transmission to cure. Each time you do this, drain the pan, converter and change the filter. The system
is likely full of crud & it's going to take
time to get it all out.

Mike Murrell
'91 300-SEL

Thanks, JeffSR (aka Steve) and Mike for the advise. This afternoon, I changed the filter and the fluid in both the pan and Torque Converter, and added some conditioner to the fluid. It seems to have helped so far, I'll be driving it more this week and put it to the test. Thanks again.

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300SDL
300E
300D
240D