Mr. Ditmire I have a '98 C230 sedan that I bought new and have had serviced regularly at my selling dealer. It has 91,000 miles on it now.
This car has an electronically shifted transmission. Since my second year of ownership it has had a problem on cold starts with holding on to low gear and delaying upshifting.
The dealer has looked on four separate occasions for a cause, and each time reported back that they've installed the latest software upgrades and they can find nothing else wrong with it. I've also gotten a lecture about how it has a "driver adaptive transmission" (whatever that means) and that they behave differently than the ordinary mechanical/hydraulic transmissions I'm used to - to which all I've done is roll my eyes and say "Oh".
The thing got real bad a few weeks ago and although I don't usually drive it myself, I had to go somewhere the other day and so I got in and cranked it up and went off down the street. This time it not only delayed the shift overly long --- it NEVER SHIFTED! It hit the rev-limiter.
Of course the car is long since beyond warranty, but this just seems like the end result of an on-going process that started way back a long time ago when the vehicle WAS covered.
The car sits today in a service bay at my local dealership. After several days tinkering they have concluded that there is indeed something internally wrong with the trans. We've had several discussions during the past few days after they first offered to swap it out for me and all it would cost would be about $4K.
Are you aware of any particular problems with C230 transmissions?
Anything you or other knowledgeable parties could contribute would be appreciated.
Thx in advance.
Pat