Thanks Kestas. My wife is tall too, so your "trick" of putting the back seat in a more vertical position may work for her as well. I also suggested to her that it may help if she tried to have more of her thighs in contact with the seat cushion, as opposed to mostly her lower back only, putting too much pressure there and explaining the pain (she has long legs too). So maybe moving the whole seat up would also help? What's your experience? It may help me convince her to try harder and that there is indeed a simple solution...

No, my transmission expert did not adjust the play in the throttle linkages because he admitted his unfamiliarity with MB designs, and so I wanted to double-check first, hence this thread. ;-) Thanks for confirming that this can be adjusted on the M104 (as on the M103) and could not only improve feel, but also behavior. I also mentioned in another thread that my W124 didn't hold still in slopes without braking: could adjusting the throttle linkages address this too?

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1991 W126 300SE (M103)
1995 W124 E320 Wagon (M104)