guru

but I have a quick question. I own a 2004 E320 4Matic. How many gears does the automatic transmission have, 4 or 5?

sosh

I have an 05 and it has 5 speeds as did my 01. Yours has 5 also to the best of my knowledge.

guru

when i look at the gear changes it only goes 1,2,3,4.....i dont recall seeing a 5th gear. unless reverse counts as a gear?

DaveFr

"D" is 5th gear.

DWP

... or to be hyperpicky, "D" allows the transmission to shift into 5th gear. When the display says "D", you could actually be in any gear from 1 to 5 at the moment; there's no way of telling for sure other than counting the shifts. If you're going a steady 65 on the freeway in "D", of course, you can safely assume that you're in 5th.

DaveFr

Picky, picky! <grin>

Double Eagle

You have 5 gears as others have noted. An easy way to convinve yourself of this is to drive on a flat road at about 50mph. Take your foot off the gas and downshift to 4, then 3, 2 and finally 1. If you drive much in the mountains you would probably have done this on occassion as you descend steep and winding roads. Your transmission should give smooth up and downshifts when changing gears by using the left and right motion of the gear selector. Not as neat as the paddles on the new M series SUV's but pretty slick once you get used to using the selector for a particular gear. Your dash board indicator will tell you what gear you are in.