ML320 ETS activating in my driveway?

[perdue]

I just bought a 2000 ML320. and am generally pleased, but it exhibits some strange behavior that I thought I'd ask about...

I have a relatively long and fairly steep driveway, but none of the vehicles that climb it daily appear to have any problems. My ML, on the other hand, seems ti "hang" when I first turn right onto the concrete drive and start up. The vehicle slows, there is a whining sound from the front end, pressure on the accelerator does nothing, and the triangular ESP/ETS icon flashes briefly in the dash. After a second or two of being stalled on the drive, I'm able to proceed.

I initially assumed that the ESP was mistakenly attempting to correct a "skid" because of the sharp turn involved, but turning the ESP off didn't correct the problem. Could it be that the ETS is kicking in, even in the absence of wheelspin, and robbing me of torque?

The dealer, of course, was useless: Responses varied from "We're downloading special software into your engine to correct the problem" (turned out to be a generic upgrade for cold-weather starting problems) to the ever-popular "That's normal."

Any thoughts would be appreciated.