More on the ASR issue:

As soon as I walked out the door this morning, the bone-chilling cold told me that this was a potential ASR/LHM day. When I got in the car, felt the arthritic stiffness of the shifter, and noticed the extra half-second or so of crank time, I knew a fault could be triggered, if I did things right.

Normally I would have just sat and idled for a few minutes to let things warm up a bit. Today, however, I just drove off. After about 200 hundred feet, when I tapped the brakes to go over a speed bump, the ASR light came on. I shut the car off, restarted (ASR off), and continued onto a local road for about half a mile. When I slowed at a stoplight, the ASR light came on.

I recall reading something about a brake light switch connection to ASR/LHM faults. But if the switch was the problem, why would it occur only when the car is cold? Or is that switch reacting to the cold in a similar manner as my neutral safety switch?

After driving another 2 or 3 miles, with the engine straining to get out of 1st (or second?) gear, I felt a familiar surge of power that let me know the issue had sorted itself out. Instead of the engine straining to get to a higher gear, it now felt like it was in a higher gear but something was holding it down. (I am guessing that, because the ASR fault code was still in the computer, the car was unnecessarily throttling itself back.) After shutting down and restarting, all was well.

So perhaps I now have two switches to replace: Neutral Safety; and Brake Light.

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2008 E350 4matic / Black/Anthracite

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Gone but not Forgotten:
2001 E430 4matic, 206,xxx miles, Black/Charcoal
1995 E320, 252,xxx miles, Black/Grey
1989 260E, 223,00 miles, Black/Black