I put it in "S" and then use the manual gear change feature to upshift and downshift. Every time I do some spirited driving the car will start skipping gears and basically plays it safe to lower the RPMs on me. Anyone else frustrated with this? Is there an ECU chip anywhere out there to fix this and increase shifting speed?

Thanks for the help!

When you write "spirited", do you mean at the redline? If so, it's protecting itself from you! This allows you to keep moving with a "safety upshift". Better than a fuel pump shut off or rev limiter!

LOLLLL
S mode or C mode in manual auto shifting, i believe it will change the gear right before redline. if you are in 1 gear at manual auto shifting, and the gear changes at 3000rpm to 2nd gear by itself then your car has a problem. but if it changes gears right before redline, then its normal. If you dont like the gear shifting by itself you should have bought a manual c300.

Manual gear change program works if you select "M" for the tranny program but I thought US cars would not have this (only "C" and "M") except AMG models or similar? On a W204 not even all Euro cars have the "M" option.

What RPMs are you having this happen?

it's more or less around 4-5k and when upshifting. I'll hit it from like 1st into 2nd or 2nd into 3rd and the car will spend about a second longer with the clutch in and jump up an extra gear. I almost think it's more related to how open the throttle is...if I hold my speed at around 4-5k and then shift up it will only go up one gear, but if I'm speeding up and try to shift it will jump gears.

do the AMG cars have a more aggressive auto tranny? (like do they shift faster and feel more direct) I really wanted to get a C63 instead of my C300 but having 4matic was important for winter. Now I'm kind of wishing I just picked up a winter beater and got the car I really wanted instead. But I did save a bunch of money so that's good. Anyways, I drove my friends BMW with a SMG tranny the other day and it really felt like you were shifting a manual, rev matching and everything, but the C300 seems like a slush box.

I completely understand what you are talking about here, MB wants to protect the general public from damaging their cars. But my car just seems like a little too much over kill. Might just have to learn to live with it.

It's anticipating the shift and when you tap it to go up a gear, it'll do double duty and shift up twice. I usually leave mine in "D" and when I stop on the throttle for passing or some spirited corners, the car downshifts to a lower gear to get some more power and won't shift until I let up on the throttle for a few seconds. It'll hold revs at 5k with no throttle for 2 seconds before it decides to downshift on my car. Can get it to redline easily but I usually coax it to shift around 5.5k to 6k RPM.