Mr. J

I test drove a '19 C43 coupe and it starts in 2nd gear in C and E. My '17 GLC43 does it and so does my C450. On inclines and from could start they will sometimes start from 1st and then after my first full stop they start from 2nd.

TModelle

There is no E mode on a ‘19. You might be mistaken and it might have been an ‘18.

TModelle

In Xentry under ME control unit, I could not find this option. Are you sure about it.

Mr. J

Come to think of it, I think it was an '18 C43 and a '19 E53 that we drove. The E53 definitely starts from 2nd in C. It seems strange that MB would change this for the '19C43. Have any other MY19 owners confirmed this is a feature change or is this unique to your car?

AZFTW

Mine starts in 1st

TModelle

All 2019 C43 start in 1st in all modes.

Mr. J

I agree. The bunny hop isn't mechanical. I think it's the throttle mapping. It's too aggressive at initial pedal travel. In S+ at less than 50% throttle my GLC43 is at WOT and holding gear to redline. It's not linear either. In the other drive modes I have to actually floor it to hit WOT.

Mr. J

Now that all drive modes default to 1st gear start, I wonder if they tweaked the mapping to fix the bunny hop.

Have any '19 drivers out there had it yet?

TModelle

No, it’s the same. I regularly drive my friends ‘18 Coupe and the throttle response is similar, but the good part is that it can start in 2nd. For my ‘19 whenever I feel any onset of funny behaviour with the car taking off, I let go of the throttle so it doesn’t happen, but I can see how it could get worse if continued. There’s really no excuse for the bad throttle mapping for the C43, it’s not like this car is a super high performance car and have such bad manners. All the other competing makes like BMW or Audi don’t have such a problem. I drove a C63S over a weekend and it doesn’t even have this problem.

superswiss

One of these days I'm gonna have to see if I can drive a C43 in a more normal setting. I did drive one on the track in S+, and I didn't feel any issues with the throttle mapping as we were slowly pulling out of the pit lane and coming to a smooth stop in the pit lane after the laps. Neither during the lap. The throttle from what I remember was pretty linear and allowed for smooth acceleration out of the corners. It was during the AMG Driving Academy, so I would think those are pretty well run in cars and obviously have seen some pretty aggressive driving on the track. S+ is really not meant nor suited for normal driving around town, and I still suspect that some of these cars may have learned some bad habits from driving the car in the wrong mode and perhaps too much stop and no go to really collect enough data and adapt the transmission. I can tell from my C63S, that it really took several thousand miles for it to feel right and be in sync with my driving style and at over 9000 miles it still seems to get better as I'm driving it in my typical settings.

TModelle

Don’t over think this learning thing, these cars do not learn that much to make a very significant difference. They do learn, but not so much as you might think. All other high performance German marques drive well out of the box and don’t have to learn. They should drive well no matter what. I am in the automotive industry and drive many of these cars everyday, none of them can learn habits to the point that they drive badly afterward. Shift points or shift behaviour, or maybe fuel economy and fuel trims, but not in gear jerky behaviour at part throttle. That would not be the result of “learning” driving behaviour over time. Nowadays the throttle pedals are “demand” pedals, not real throttle pedals like in the past. It is just an input to the ECU to know what torque requirement the driver wants, not directly correlated to throttle angle as one might think.

Mr. J

Yeah I've done the AMG DA too and played with all the toys. Remember, for low speed maneuvering a smooth track surface is much more forgiving than a rutted up city street. There really is no comparison. Even the parking lot at Laguna Seca where we ran the auto X and skid pad courses was silky smooth compared to the streets I drive at home.

Personally, I've only encountered the bunny hop on rough or uneven pavement surfaces which is the condition of most US roads these days.

As far as drive time, I have 28k miles on the GLC43 so break-in is not an issue.

superswiss

I think that brings back a point that was made on another thread I believe. If you are driving over rough roads and you get thrown around in the car, chances are your foot is doing the bunny hopping with the throttle pedal. Try to hold the foot steady even if you get thrown about in the car. I definitely had bunny hopping that way in several cars, especially with manual transmissions. A direct drivetrain will exaggerate this. I suspect the C43 is pretty aggressive with the lock-up clutch, so once the torque converter is locked any bouncing on the throttle pedal gets translated fairly directly through the drivetrain. To be frank, I bunny hopped my C63S that way at the beginning over some unexpected road bumps. I've learned to keep my foot more steady now. Some other cars, in particular Audis have a more forgiving throttle mapping, so that quick stabs don't immediately transfer to the drivetrain, on the other hand in more dynamic driving situations that will lead to lag. Most of the roads around here are now also quite smooth. We've had a marathon of repaving over the last decade. I actually found the roads here in NorCal to be smoother than European roads if you can believe it. I was quite shocked how neglected the roads in Europe have become and it wasn't just me. My friends and relatives who live there all confirmed my observations. Here in NorCal they use rubberized asphalt, which makes the roads smoother and also much less noisy.