230ce automatic transmission sticking

[flippin'eck]

We have a 230ce which must be about 8 years old - it has an automatic gearbox.

The problem we're having has been intermittently apparrent from new.

90% of the time the car drives ok, but occasionally the gearbox will, in the middle of a journey, suddenly cease to change gear - leaving one only able to drive in first gear.

Every time, the fix is simple, pull over, switch off, restart. Everything then fine until the next random time.

Have never really pinned down any causative factor - happens in all places, under all conditions as far as I can tell.

The vehicle has been religiously serviced by Mercedes. I've told them about the problem the last 3 or 4 services, they've never found anything nor fixed the problem.

Any thoughts? Thanks folks.

 

[television]

No one seems to know why, My last car the SL129 did it 3-4 times in the 2 years i had it. We have had 6 or so threads this year on the problem, and no one has come up with an answer.

If your box is of the sealed for life type,dont forget that this is now finished and the oil and filter should be replaced at 60k miles, it might solve the problem,who knows.

Malcolm

 

[eric242340]

When this problem occurs a fault code is registered on the engine or EGS transmission computer. When you switch off and restart the engine, you are actually clearing the fault code. Unless You take the car to a dealer when the fault occurs and without switching the engine off, the gremlin will never be found. Sorry cant be more helpful.

 

[flippin'eck]

I tell a lie - it's a 1999 240E. The 230CE was our last Mercedes which never had a problem.

So I'm not alone eh!

On my old MR2, there's a way in which you can bridge some terminals in the ECU connector, and it will flash the lamps to indicate stored error codes. Is there something analagous on the Mercedes 240E - if the fault happened at some future point could I, before switching off and 'losing' the error, persuade the car to tell me what the error code (if any) is/are, so I could give the info to the dealer?

Also on the MR2, one enthusiast has made a datalogging interface that piggybacks onto the ECU, which will output many parameters in realtime to a logfile on a laptop - again, wondered if anyone knew of anything similar for the Mercedes to try and isolate the problem.

As far as I know the oil and filter in the transmission has never been changed, other than whatever Mercededs do at the standard service intervals (it's never missed a service) - but mileage is pretty low at 25000.

Thanks for looking folks

 

[eric242340]

With mileage that low, you definately have an electronics problem and like i said before it, the computer fault code, needs reading(when the fault is present)

 

[flippin'eck]

If I can manage to bring the car to Mercedes with the fault 'live' I'll be sure to report back with any details. Thanks peeps