guru

I had a weird short-lived transmission screw-up. The light had turned green and I pressed on the gas. The car seemed to be stuck in first gear and the RPMs went up to between 4000 and 5000 (which seemed hi to me). I let go of the gas and tried again, and again the car refused to shift up. I turned into a side street, changed gears from Drive to Park and then Drive again. After that, the car behaved as if nothing had happened and was completely normal. I drove for another hour right after this and the car was perfect. The entire weirdness lasted no more that 15 seconds or so. My inability to re-create it makes me wonder whether I imagined the whole thing. I had 2 kids in tha back seat so I was driving very gently when this happened. In six months of owning the car nothing like this has ever happened before. Could it be that my hand was on the shift-knob and I (inadvertently) shifted gears, or is it something to do with the car?

F1Fan

I actually do not doubt that this happened. On occassion, the transmission I have will act strange. When driving around slowly around the neighborhood, it will act confused and give me a really harsh downshift into first gear. It feels like someone kicked you in the back because of the lurch I get when the transmission drops into gear. It doesn't happen all the time but every once in awhile the computer seems to brainfart or something.

DWP

Inadvertently applying too much leftward pressure to the gearshift lever could have put the transmission all the way down into first gear if you were stopped. I'm not sure if shifting Drive->Park->Drive will put the transmission back into full "D" mode if you manually put it in a lower gear and don't turn off the ignition. Assuming that you didn't notice if the gearshift indicator showed "1" instead of "D" when this happened, you could try to recreate the event by manually shifting into "1" (press gearshift to the left for maybe two seconds while stopped) someplace safe and seeing if it's the same event. But you probably tried that already.

Brian_I.

I've had that happen to me twice. Both times I had my hand resting on the gearshift and inadvertantly tapped it into "manual" mode.

guru

Sorry DWP but I haven't tried it yet, I do plan to do so. If I indeed do that and the car is in the first gear, does it stay in it until you change it manually? I have not tried manual shifting with the car ever before.....
Also, I did not turn off the ignition during this incident. Does that mean I had not put in first gear?

Also, as Samoan-ridah says, I did have my hand on the shifter when this happened.
Thx

jim256

If you tap the lever left, it drops down a gear, tap right, up. But, if you hold the lever left for about 2 seconds, it picks the most appropriate gear for fast acceleration from your current speed and dynamics. It stays in that gear until you tap right/up. If stopped, it locks first gear if you hold it to the left for about 2 seconds.

DWP

If the car is in first gear, it stays there (at least until the ignition is turned off) until you "manually" upshift it or restore it to automatic "D". You can "manually" upshift it one gear at a time by tapping to the right, or restore it directly to "D" by right-holding for two seconds.

The reason I mentioned turning off the ignition is that I don't know, if you put the transmission in "P" and turn off the ignition when the transmission is in gears 1 through 4 (on a 5-speed transmission) whether the transmission is in the same gear, or defaults back to "D", when you restart the car from "P."

"Manual" shifting of an automatic is no substitute for a true manual, but it's better than nothing. I came to the W211 from a manual-transmission BMW 5-series and I like to hold the transmission lever to the left when I enter a corner at speed, to put the transmission into the lowest gear it will allow. I then tap-shift up through the gears as I exit the corner. Whooopeee.

guru

Sounds like fun...I have driven manuals all my life, this is the first automatic I have owned ( wife, kids, etc. etc.). A while back I navigated the hills of SF for several years with a stick-shift....now, that was entertaining....

jschade

Or, in the case of my '05 anyway, until the engine approaches the redline on the tach, and then as a safety precaution, it will upshift to the next gear by itself.

"guru" only let his get to 4-5000 RPM's before he pulled over. Had he drove it up to 6000 RPM's (redline on a 320), it would probably have shifted into second gear - at least mine would have.

DWP

You're probably right as to all W211s. I've never run my '03 up to redline in any transmission position other than "D" (where, of course, it upshifts itself) and so I don't really know what it would do at redline in gears 1 through 4 (or 1 through 6 with a 7-speed). I was assuming that the rev limiter would cut in and leave you hanging at whatever the corresponding speed is in that gear, like with a manual transmission, but having the transmission upshift itself to the next gear would be a definite safety factor in passing situations.

djantlive

I had my E coasting in N downhill a couple of times and won't engage in D when I reached the bottom of hill. It's intermitten and since I don't coast anymore it hasn't caused an issue. Just FYI