This has happened to my wife several times and she just has to pull over and wait until the transmission engages. The car has been to the dealer twice for this issue and they can not find anything wrong.

2003 E500 Platinum Blue/Charcoal, E-2, E-3,
Wood Steering Wheel, CD changer, Chrome Rims

 

Hi,

I think this is a serious matter, and actually when this bug occur, it could very well lead into an accident. Actually at one occurance to my wife, she was making a quick left turn from a parking lot exit and merge into a busy street with high speed oncoming traffic, she step on the gas and the car go and half way into the lane and the car lost all the power. That really scared her. I think we all should speak up to Mercedes. The dealer could not help us, they always say no error code found and hence the car has no problem. People who had experienced this problem should all sign a letter to MBUSA making them acknowledge this problem. They need to come up a solution to fix our car right. If an accident happened because of this, we needs a lot of people to back up the case because it is indeed a problem.

 

This happened to my E430 once right after I raced a CLK430. I beat the CLK by a half car and when I let go of the gas when approaching a red light, the transmission disengaged and wouldn't engage again when the light turns green while the car was still rolling. I had to make the car stop completely before it re-engages. I took the car to the dealership, and they couldn't find anything wrong. But I remember on the paperwork it says something like "Reprogramed and optimized shifting" I didn't experience the same problem ever since.

 

Do you mean the transmission was no longer in any gear or that the stick actually moved out of the D position into N... I know stupid question... I'm just not clear by the description.

 

As for me, the shift lever was still in D but then the engine just revs freely. It feels like the tranny is not in gear.

 

The transmission is desgined not to allow reving the engine too high and engaging a gear ie; "a neutral-drop". Apparently when you inadvertently went from drive into neutral at speed and then back into gear it triggered this fail safe.

With respect to all the others posting about their car reving then engaging , this has to do with the adaptive transmission program learning your driving style. This has been an on going issue with the program since MB introduced it. I've owned 5 MB's with the adaptive trans and they all did it for awhile; it occurs most often if you are changing your driving styles ie; very aggressive then switching to conservative then pressing the gas firmly as to accelerate quickly and lifting slightly confusing the program. I found this to be quite annyoing at times if not dangerous.

I've always driven my 04 CLK500 somewhat the same, conservatively/occasionally moderately aggressive and never using the manual mode since new and have not had this phenomenon occur (10,000 miles so far) which seems to confirm my theory.

Hope this is helpful.

 

I can understand if you mistakenly pushed the shifter up to netural then pop it back to drive at low speed AND high rpm the transmission may enter into the fail safe mode. With the car travelling at higher speed and engage to drive I do not see the need of a fail safe in the program.

Anyway, what we are really complain about is the transmission just self disengage the gear into netural without the driver touching the shifter while accelerating is definitely a defect or bug in the software, whether with or without adaptive learning program. I owned two BMWs with adaptive transmission and currently a Toyota Sienna with adaptive learning transmission and they do not exhibit this behaviour. If all your 5 MBs do that, I think MB is having some problem making these transmission right but just not admitting it.

 

-if you manually shift to 1st, and then hold the stick to the right (without letting go) it will quick-shift all the gears and put you back in to Drive
-if you're in drive and you hold it down (without letting go) it will quick shift you back to 1st gear-
-the shift back from neutral to drive happens even with the C-class autos...it prevents the trans from doing a neutral drop (i know that is done from a stop)
-just like if you have the car in park/neutral and not moving and you floor the gas it will not redline

 

This has been an interesting thread and I must agree with RJC.

You can tell someone their breath smells.
You can tell someone they are ugly.
You can tell someone they have a terrible dress sense.

BUT NEVER attempt to criticise the way someone drives a car. It is NEVER their fault. It is either the other person, or the cars fault.

I am not saying that last comment applies to everyone here but if the description of some posts are correct, then their driving style would be better used perhaps on the race track. Either that or invest in an advanced driving course. (are these available in the US).

Surely if there was a problem with the '500' jumping out of gear there would be complaints coming into Mercedes-Benz world wide????? by thousands of very angry users!! Why just a few complaints?

I'm fortunate in being a perfect driver, so no one can criticise my driving style

"""I proceeded to downshift to third to accelerate hard. When the tach approached approx 5800 I went to bang it into fourth but inadvertently pushed the gear shift into neutral"""

"""I raced a CLK430. I beat the CLK by a half car"""

"""a quick left turn from a parking lot exit and merge into a busy street with high speed oncoming traffic"""

I apologise for my rather blunt response and am now preparing to accept the consequences.

Regards,
John
A windy morning in Torquay

 

Excerpt from a letter to Paul Halata from me:

"The engine will occasionally surge and ebb before car will accelerate. I have experienced rpm readings of between 5500 and 6300 before the car begins to move. There appears to be a direct relationship between this issue and temperature. It was worst during the coldest months and it stopped in early April after the weather warmed. I believe this is not a mechanical problem but related to the original November 2003 issue of the transmission disengaging. Apparently the behavior throws off no code. This is not the normal hesitation after stepping on the accelerator. I rarely “floor it” in any event, nor do I ever manually shift."

I took this problem as well as two other significant safety related issues from the dealer all the way up to the highest level of MBUSA with no success. No code - no problem. My advice to you is to file a complaint with the NHTSA as I did recently and either get rid of the car or live with it.

I will be leaving the MB brand permanently in the next several months and will not look back. The car was an expensive mistake and one I will not make again. I would like to extend a thanks to several members of the forum who helped me privately.

 

rdtjr,

althought I am satisfied with my E500 despite a few minor glitches and have not had the transmission problems you described (yet, but I hope not), I appreciate and respect your decision. It is unbelievable, downright outrageous that no one at MB is doing anything to keep you, the customer of a very expensive car with an apparently dangerous problem, happy, be it with a free new car or whatever. You are doing the right thing, that is the only way they will learn that they HAVE to improve their customer service. Best of luck to you for the future and also with your new set of wheels, whatever they may be. Please drop us a line to let us know what your new car is and how you like it. Have a good evening.

 

Hi rdtjr,
I have read your letter with interest and I just wonder if this article 'might' be relevant

""it's a "feature" to warm up the cat more quickly thus making it work as soon as possible to help pass emissions legislation.

You will notice this more in colder weather as this program runs longer than in the hot weather due to the longer warm up time.

On mine, it holds on to each gear up to 2500 or 3000 rpm when cold with the lightest throttle opening. This falls to about 1500 - 2000 rpm change ups after 5 minutes.

You can get the feature diasabled at the dealer, but they make warnings about voiding the cat warranty. This is obviously not an issue on our age cars though.

Most annoying, the car eats fuel if you do lots of cold starts because of this.""

I appreciate the revs issue is different, but you do mention the weather issue. The above message is extracted from another Mercedes-Benz forum.

Good luck with your choice of new vehicle,

Kind regards,
John
A sunny morning in Torquay

 

glojo:

Interesting bit of information. However, it will do this after the car is warmed up and never when the ambient temperature is moderate, even when starting out. I drive very moderately in cold weather until the engine is at operating temperature.

If you have any information on why the climate controls occasionally seize up - and the blowers turn off - when I turn on the front defroster or why the driver's seat will occasionally forget my wife's settings and move completely up and forward, trapping her in the seat, I'd appreciate that information as well!

 

I feel sorry for your particular circumstance and carried out a little research to try and help you to resolve this horrible fault. The above problems sound like the onboard computer. The steering wheel on both Barry's car and my own, are more than familar with the intimate details of our 'midriff'. If you do a search under Easy Exit you will find that it is a well documented problem. (that as usual does NOT show up on the Star Diagnostic equipment)

Take care, and my apologies for not being more helpful
Regards,
John
Sunny with brief showers in Torquay

 

glojo:

You have always been one of the most gracious, helpful and knowledgeable posters on the forum. Thank you for your good wishes.

With whatever car I purchase, I doubt I will find another forum quite like this one. It has been an invaluable resource. Over and out.

 

About a week ago and a half, my sisters and I drove my parents 03' E500 from Houston to Dallas. When we got to Dallas, I went up a small hill and the car began to violently rumble and made the loudest 'whining' sound i've ever heard.

I pulled into the mall and restarted the car and everything was fine again.

The next day we left the hotel heading back to Houston. I pressed down on the accelerator to merge onto the freeway and the car again began to violently shake and rumble and the car seemed to be stuck in neutral. The car would not move at all. The engine would rev but the car wouldn't accelarate. All the cars on the freeway began blasting their horns like crazy. Thank GOD for the next exit, I managed to drive the car off the freeway at about 25 mph and pulled into a restaurant.

I tried to restart the car, and this time the car wouldnt move at all. I called roadside assistance and they came and tried to help but there was nothing they can do. It was on a Sunday, so the guy dropped us at the airport where we has to pay $800 to fly home.

The car is still in Dallas. We have all had it with this car, this is the 2nd or 3rd time this car has had transmission problems.

 

I believe Mercedes Roadside Assistance covers trip interruption. You could probably get them to reimburse you part of the $800 that you had to pay.

 

When you put the transmission into nuetral, then back into drive, when you put it back in drive it will resume the gear you "tipped" it into before putting it in neutral, UNLESS DOING SO OVER-REVS THE ENGINE.

You basically went from 3rd to neutral back to 3rd.

Which leads to my next point. 5800 RPM's is nothing for the E500 engine. In fact, sometimes I dog my Ford Bronco 5.0 harder than that and it is 1987 Detroit Union Labor junk.

So, had you stabbed the go pedal after putting it back into gear, around 4500 or so RPM's you would have began to feel thrust. (I say 4500 because the vehicle speed was allowed to drift down some).

If you wanted fourth after putting it back in "D" you would still need to tip it to the right one click.

You were not stuck in nuetral but actually back in third, and the engine needed to do a lot of catching up for the RPM's to match the wheel speed in third gear at that time.

 

Hey everyone, just resurrecting this old thread to add another "Transmission slipping into neutral by itself" incident to the counter.

Just had this happen to me merging onto the freeway today. The merging lane was coming to an end so I decided to give it a little gas and it seemed to lag about 1-2 seconds before it actually kick-downshifted into gear with a sudden jolt (kind of felt like a neutral drop which I did not do, hand was not touching the gear shifter, was not using tiptronic just driving normally) which startled me to immediately let off the pedal. After a brief moment of contemplating "what the hell was that?" and checking that everything was in order (i.e gear is in D, etc.), I tried to speed up as I was reaching dangerously low speeds with speeding cars approaching behind and noticed the car was doing nothing but revving as if it were in neutral. Needless to say this prompted the angry tailgaters to (understandably) honk away, at which point I pulled over to the shoulder with my hazards and was not able to move until I popped it into neutral and back into drive.

I've only got 15,000km (that's right, KM not Miles) on the odometer. I havn't even been to my first oil change yet and its already experiencing transmission problems. I'm going into the dealer tomorrow but from what others have experienced, I already know what response to expect (no-code, no-problem). Anybody come across a fix yet or anything TSB's/Bulletins I should let the service-tech look into??

Thanks!

 

"I may be important that anyone who has experienced this report it to MB. Reporting it to a service advisor at a dealer is no doubt a dead end. Maybe an email on MBUSA would at least get it on record. If there is a problem the only way MB will know if they get a string of serious reports."
I have also experienced the "neutral: incident on my E500 03. I was accelerating and the tranny downshifted, and then someone pulled out from a side street. I let off the gas quickly just after the downshift, and the tranny went into "neutral" Nothing I did with the selector would get it to apply power to the wheels. I coasted off to a stop and turned the engine off and restart, then all has been ok. This car was taken to our "authorized dealer" who "problem can not be duplicated" therefore nothing was done.

I know this problem exist, and do believe this is a safety,, guess I just forgot to go to the NTSB on this one after the dealer (who is the only one for 125 miles) said. "problem can not be duplicated" Jim

 

Where do you take your E for servicing? I recommed the big dealership at Dundas and the DVP. Ask for Chris Ruckermann. If you are mid town go to the MB Headquarters at Eglinton-Laird where they have all the latest equipment. Do it now when it is still under warranty.

 

Anyone have any luck with this at the dealer? My parents 04' e500 (12k miles) is exhibiting this problem too (and i thought i was just going crazy). Once I was caught in an intersection a week ago while this happened where the car felt like it was stuck in neutral and i revved and nothing happened). It just happened to my parents while they were driving it. I'm going to take this back to the dealer, but how the heck would i be able to duplicate it? This is something that is definitely NOT SAFE and has a HUGE potential to cause an accident!!!

 

I have had no other incidents like this. However I make it a point that when accelerating to avoid releasing the throttle quickly. Now I back off a little more slowly so the transmission will act normally.

 

has anyone been able to determine a fix for this -- it just happened to me yesterday -- very strange

 

happend to me yesterday...cold start after sitting in the office parking lot for 8 hours...was feeling tired and needed to get a rush so jumped on the gas. Car shifted and then disengaged. Pulled over on the shoulder and restarted the car. Fine so far but scary...

No one knows the problem or how to fix??