Normal behaviour for 1999 E220CDI autobox

[johnoo]

Hallo,

this is my first MB, and my first car with an autobox. I am not quite sure about what to expect from the autobox. Here's a description which is "norma"l for my car, but it makes me a bit suspicious.

The car is recently imported from Germany to Norway has so far logged 157.000 km.

Starts OK, runs fine into 3. rd gear. I think gear changes happen at around 2000 rpm's. But to get it into the 4. th gear the engine must be close to 3000 rpms. I'm not using the kickdown. This happens only the first time I want to go into the 4.th gear. The autobox is ok until I switch off and start again. Then same procedure again.

Is this expected behaviour?

-john olsen

 

[dieselman]

Does it do this only from the first cold start.

If it's only from cold it is to rev the engine high enough to fire the catalytic converter, from then on the car should run as normal.

I know of someone who has a problem with the car holding 3rd gear but randomly at any temperature. Some times it does it sometimes not.