W210 Stuck in gear.
This one is common as muck; it applies to all models up to about 2004 but is most common on the 210.
Come out in the morning and start the car, drive of up the road and you notice that the gearbox is not changing gear correctly, staying in first or second, you pull over and switch off and restart, the car then changes gear correctly, you carry on and forget the whole thing!
The next day the same thing happens, you do the above again and the fault clears!
Right what’s going on?
The biggest cause of this fault is that the battery voltage is down due to the battery nearing its sell by date! When you start In the morning , the cranking amps needed to throw the starter in and crank the engine is causing a loss of power to the other systems on the car, the other electrical systems are being starved of voltage!
For some reason the gearbox control module is the first to kick off! The control module detects the loss of voltage and then stores a fault code in the control module, the gear box then refuses to change gear because of this,
What then happens is, because by this time the car has been running for 5 mins, the battery has had its voltage topped up by the alternator, you restart and the fault is then put to a stored fault, as above, gearbox goes back to normal!!
Cause of this, low battery voltage, car been sat, or a new battery needed,
Most times a replacement battery will cure, on the odd car the fault codes will need to be erased before the box returns to normal!!!
Sounds like the electric plate, sump of, valve body down, remove the electric plate and replace, messy job, plate around £180 from MB, gasket and filter and oil and labour!!!!
If I empty oil from box, will need a dipstick to refill correct level of ATF.
Any ideas where to get one, MB want £70 + VAT (pricey)
Had my electroplate replaced and still having problems with car sticking in gear, think my shifter unit is playing up. Will need to take back to garage for confirmation.
What was the cost of a new shifter unit?
P2006/ P2000