KennethKwok

I had experience in driving a manual car.

I like changing gears on my 2005 W211 E500 sedan
with 7 speed auto +/-


Would using the +/- frequently damage the gearbox?

Yesterday, I was driving.

I checked. The gear lever is at D

Suddenly, on pressing the acceleration, the engine revs up
quickly. Car does not accelerate.
It seems like the car is in neutral.

Could it be gear hunting.... and put on neutral, when I
press the acceleration.


This lasted for probably a few seconds maximum,
and then goes back to normal.

Today, the car drives normally.


Many thanks for your help.
1. Would using the +/- frequently damage the gearbox?
2. Did anyone experience the "neutral" gear when the stick
is in drive.

vettdvr

You should not have a + / - issue.
I also experienced the sudden neutral when my 03 was about 2 yrs old. I had to stop, shutdown, restart and it never did it again. I was doing full throttle acceleration and just about at the up shift point a car cut across in front of me and I let go of the throttle and hit the brake, then it was in neutral without moving the shift lever and would not reset until restarted. Dealer found no codes or problems.

despicable merc

i don't know maybe newer models got better gearbox but my manual shifting is super slow i almost never use it + it only have 4 gears in manual mode. It seems to me MB made it for emergency situations.

KennethKwok

Many thanks.

My 2005 E500 has a 7 speed. But it only show 1-2-3-4-5-6-D on the dash board
below the speedometer.
7 is not shown.

From reading internet, E320 should have 5 speeds.
I suspect yours is 1-2-3-4-D (5 forward speeds)

I might have over-estimated my manual transmission skills.
Yet, I think I can shift on a manual car faster than the E500 +/-
When I try to accelerate and downshift, there is a slight delay.
I now try to downshift first, wait half a second,
and then, accelerate and change lane to overtake.

The 7G-tronic auto transmission does not feel as instantaneous as manual
transmission.
Honestly, most of the time I don't know what gear the car is in.
Most of the time, the engine is at less than 2000 rpm
That's not as satisfying.

When I drive manual transmission cars, I would think,
"This is 60km/hr. 3rd gear should be plenty of power.
2nd gear would be extremely powerful at high rpm.
5th gear would be very smooth and economical, useful to slide
along without much gas usage.
Now, I don't know which gear I am at with auto 7G-tronic.
When a "6" displayed, only means it could be 1,2,3,4,5 or 6
It does not really mean 6.

Confidence
Manual cars are also more confident. I may not
be the quickest to change gears.
But, once I finished changing gear,
I know I get power when I press the gas pedal.

In automatic. I may press the gas pedal, and want it to go faster.
The auto transmission may then decide to shift down,
and that means a brief period of no power during gear changing,
at the exact moment that I want to go faster.
And if it does not shift down, it may not have enough "torque"/ acceleration ability.

Is the newer generation of dual clutch transmission (DCT) much better?
I have only heard of BMW DCT, and apparently new Benz B-Class has it.
Do they offer DCT in C class, E Class, S class?

Wardell

I have a 2007 CLS550, I always drive by shifting manually! Upon approaching a red light while highway driving, I down shift to help slow the car down (with the brakes of course).
From a stop, I usually start with the shifter (displaying) 4th, and shift up from there until it displays "D" (6th gear w/ OD), using 3,500RPM for each shift-point.
This is my first Mercedes, I'm no expert, and I've had the car for approx a year.
I've driven it this way, and so far, not a problem...
And, as long as I can afford them, I will only buy/drive MERCEDES !
NOTE; (I know that the trans. is not starting to move the car from fourth)

W211Dummy

I have the W211 2005 with 5 shift automatic. At some point in time I started experimenting with +/- mainly to use the engine for reducing the car speed. The engine can only benefit since there is no fuel injection. But after some time I started to get red alerts on the instrument cluster saying that the engine oil level is too high and must be reduced. Please visit workshop.


I never added any oil and it was also not shortly after a service. I was curious and asked MB to check the car. No problems found and no explanation about the oil level warning.


I stopped using +/-, mostly the /-, and after some weeks the oil level warnings became less frequent and finally disappeared.


I concluded that the engine oil flows gets so much upset by the /- action that the red alert takes place. So is it ok to use the /- shift action regularly? My present view, no, it hurts the engine oil circulation.


Any other views?

despicable merc

Don't use engine braking. Would you rather change transmission or brake rotors? Automatic transmission not designed for it.. I mean why would you wanna stress transmission like that. Automatic transmission downshifts only when computer tells it to do.. And BTW you can't just downshift it at any point it can only down shift if computer thinks its ok based on speed and rpm

LILBENZ230

A lot of rampant speculation going on here. Touchshift is not that mysterious. It does not make it a manual. It simply sends an electronic request for a gear change, up or down, and if the RPMs are safe it will allow it. It won't be instant. I find it works pretty well with in my 2009 with steering wheel paddles.

It is still fairly useless. It won't cause oil level warnings or anything like that.

W211Dummy

There is another reason why I started to use the /- down shift regularly. My advisor in MB told me they often had to replace the diesel particle filter of models with automatic drive. Models with manual gear boxes did not have this issue. The explanation is that the automatic models hardly make any RPM's and tend to fill up the filter with burnt remains. The manually shift models tend to make some more RPM's at times which is enough to blow the **** out of the filter. By down shifting I was thinking to blow the filter a bit with some clean air.

Kenneth_kwok

My university friend was like a boy racer in the 1990s.
He was driving his relative's car. a Honda Accord in the 1980s
The automatic transmission was
P- R - N - D - 2 - L (for low gear)

He was doing a lot of gear changing by shifting the auto gear lever
Subsequently, he damaged the gearbox within a week of driving it.

Do you think his frequent gear changing damaged the auto box?

Is that 1980s Honda auto gear box different to the W211 2005 7G-tronic?