Curious if anyone has been experiencing a sluggish take off, I recently change the oil (not comfortable with the 13,000m oil change, as dictated in the service manual) and since then car seems to be sluggish from the complete stop.

 

Has the trans been inadvertently put in "C"- mode? That causes it to start in second gear.

Ours has had no such symptoms, at 10 mos and 8300 miles [I've never used C-mode, incidentally].

 

dont think that is it, since i have the car in c mode day 1, only use s mode, on the autobahn at times, jus tto play around a lil.

 

Interesting. Neither have we. I think the car is perfect in S mode, spirited driving or otherwise.

To the OP - I started to experience more enthusiastic starts at 3000mi, and a bit more at 4500mi. I suppose it takes some time for the engine to fully seat.

Best Regards,
Paolo

 

All 3 of our cars have the 7-speed auto (C300, ML350, E350) and I have noticed in all of them, even in S mode, theyll sometimes start in second gear. When you take off, it seems like the RPM's kinda of hover down low for a while. When it starts in first, the RPM's will shoot up pretty quickly, as first gear is pretty short in these cars.

But I dont know when or why the transmission starts in second sometimes, first in others. If you take off with a lot of throttle, it seems like that gives the transmission the clue to start in first. If you don't stop fully, at say a stop sign, I've noticed that it will NOT downshift to first immediately, if you stop fully, and feel the car jerk every so slightly, you know that it went down to first. You can always use touch shift to make sure that it will start in first