travisallee

I have a 2001 C320 that I think is in limp mode. I have only had this car for about six months and it is my first MB so I am not very experienced with it yet. It has been shifting a little hard on occasion only when cold. I had a dead battery about two days ago and jumped it. The car ran fine on my way to and from work yesterday. Then this morning it would not come out of second gear. I tried to use the manual shift and it would not do anything. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am hoping to be able to fix this myself as I am in the Air Force and dont want to break my pocket at the dealer.

Thanks,
Travis

travisallee

I just called the dealer and they said they can dianose it for $150 but I am wondering if I have Autozone run there test on it if that is the same thing?

dirtdiggler

Travis,
Is the engine light on ? if so you can go to Autozone and have the code read and reply back here.

petez1125

It could be the battery. I have heard that if your battery is not good enough, it will cause these types of issues.

travisallee

dirtdiggler,
The engine light is not on, the only malfunction coming up is the SOS phone. I have not had that hooked up at all thow and it has been on since I purchased the vehicle.

travisallee

petez1125,
I just replaced the battery about two months ago but it did go dead again so that could be a possible issue if that could do this. When I had to replace the battery last time I never had this problem though. I asked around why the battery would die so often and I was told that the seats on this model will do that alot.

samaritrey

what brand of battery? unplug your seat modules if you think they are draining the battery. How many miles are on the car? do any transmission maintenance.

LILBENZ230

You need to check the transmission fluid level.

travisallee

The car has 135000 miles on it. I just purchased it about six months ago so dont know the trans history. Is there anyway to check the fluid other than the dealer because it has a fill tube but no dipstick.

mleskovar

You need the correct tool for checking trans fluid level. It's a spiral metal cable with a piece of plastic on the end with level markings for hot and cold fluid. You can improvise by putting anything flexible (that won't break!!) down the fill tube and the measurements are posted in several threads on the subject. There's an electrical plug on the transmission, beneath a heat shield plate, that you access from beneath the car on the passenger side. That often leaks and sometimes the fluid works it's way up the cable to the TCU (electronics) under a plate inside the car in the passenger foot well and causes shifting problems. The plug is about $10 and easy to replace. I've heard of people using spray cleaner to clean the TCU & connectors & flush down the center of the wiring harness after replacing the plug to clear the problem. At your mileage the transmission filter and fluid should have been changed and if you can't verify it's been done then do it. Worse case scenario is your radiator is leaking coolant into the trans cooler and contaminating the fluid which eventually will lead to radiator and trans replacement. Lots of threads on that one but usually it shows up much before 135K miles so you might be safe.

Glyn M Ruck

It's definitely in limp. Buy an OBDII scanner that does transmission codes & read what codes are stored. Please post them.

BE VERY CAREFUL JUMPSTARTING A 2001. They have fragile SAMs & you will blow one. Get the battery discharge sorted. Most likely seat modules.

samaritrey

Ok well i don't think he has to worry about the radiator issues because i don't think they showed up till 2002 (the radiator issues). And get the full flush done very very soon. takes about 13quats of fluid to do right and the fluid is not cheap.

mleskovar

2001, first year here in the states. Mine was replaced.....luckily it was an external leak

samaritrey

was your radiator a behr or valeo?

mleskovar

I don't know It was done at about 25K miles (?) under warranty. I noticed a few drops of fluid on the engine under cover and took it in. When I got the car back the service order said they replaced the radiator under an STB and did a glycol test (negative). At the time there wasn't a lot of transmission failures due to glycol contamination and I didn't think much of it.

samaritrey

From my research i don't think any 2001 w203s had valeo radiators. i was worried about my car when i got it and before i found out i had a behr.

travisallee

I read in another thread to diconnect the battery for about ten minutes and I did so. The car is out of limp mode now so that problem is fixed. I am going to do a search on the measurement for the fluid to change it and the filter this wekkend. thank you all for your help, you guys are awesome.

mleskovar

Check the plug for leaking and change it out when the fluid is drained.

samaritrey

Make sure to use only the approved fluid these cars are very picky on fluid. +1 on replacing the trans plug it is cheap and a known fault in our cars.