Last week my 300E was 'drug home in disgrace', after the engine stopped running in rush hour traffic - and refused to restart.

I was planning on doing some under hood inspection anyway as drivability was [and is] poor. The car is upshifting into top gear by 25 mph, and does not downshift when [moderately] stomping on the throttle. [I need to get out of the local roads to see if flooring it to hit the kickdown switch will force a kickdown]

Shifts are [too] quick and smooth, and the transmission downshifts when you get slow enough.

All the vacuum lines seem to be in place, but the dashboard gauge goes deep into the red with even moderate throttle.

Most of the other posts regarding transmission problems seem to be a failure to upshift combined with hard shifting.

I was wondering what to look at next with the opposite problem.

I would like to get some confidence back in the car - driving the Escape isn't quirky enough.

but I thought you said the engine stopped working...am I wrong on this? So you feel the transmission caused the engine to shut down? That's interesting, as a theory.....what's your theory on this one....

Kickdown is at WOT, otherwise, forced down shift/quick up shift is regulated by the control pressure cable tension.

You might try adjusting the throttle position cable from the transmission to the throttle linkage. StarTek outlines the tensioning very elaborately, but all you need to do is ensure you have a "slight" positive pull on the cable at idle throttle position. i.e., if you were to remove the cable end from the throttle linkage, it would return to a "neutral" tension with less than 5MM of cable movement, if that!

Should bring you shift behavior back to stock. The tighter the cable, the longer upshift delay, the more relaxed, the quicker the up shift.

Too tight is not good at all and will dramatically and adversely alter your shift performance.

Good luck!

G

My 124 diesels have the downshift button/switch, pretty sure my gasser 124s do too.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff