Have owned my car for about 7 months now and it has just under 7k miles. The transmission has been rough since day one especially when it’s shifting from 2nd to 3rd gear. It has also gotten confused on several occasions: hesitating for long periods and not knowing which gear to choose or jerking to a stop like it was about to stall and shut the engine off. I realize the MCT transmission is tuned for more aggressive driving but this doesn’t seem normal. The car behaves like a person learning to drive a manual transmission. Wanted to give the car time to break in and learn my driving style before taking it to the dealership with complaints but now at 7k miles the car should be properly broken in. Dropped it off this morning and the dealership has identified the problem but does not have a solution yet. Anyone else experienced this?

 

Indeed the transmission is a bit jerky and sometimes seems like someone is driving stick shift for the first time

 

There's a known issue in the 43 models with the MCT. It came to light during the unveil of the C43 and AMG is supposedly working on a software fix, but as far as I know the fix is still not available yet and it's been over a year already I think. Currently, the temporary fix involves resetting the adaptations, which is likely what your dealership is going to do. The issue only occurs with particular driving styles and will come back. What happens is that with certain driving styles the adaptation cycle skips a step or two that results in jerky shifts. I haven't seen explained exactly what specific driving style is causing this, but it's probably why it's taking them so long to fix it.

The C43 and GLC43 are the first application of the MCT with anything other than the V8 and it seems AMG is struggling to make it work with the M139 engine. I recently drove the W206 C63 in Germany. I love the MCT in my 2019 C63, but it was terrible in the new C63. Same engine as the C/GLC 43 plus the hybrid caboodle.

Yes, the MCT is inherently rawer and rougher due to using a clutch instead of a torque converter and if you don't know what you are doing with your throttle inputs it can buck like a car with a manual transmission. But what's going on with the MCT in these 4-cylinder models is not that. Just to set your expectations, though, the MCT is not the smoothest thing for city and stop&go driving. You'll have to modulate the throttle to make it smooth. I drive my C63S coupe mostly in manual mode, but that's also where it was really terrible in the new C63. Every shift was delayed and it shifted unnecessarily harsh in Race mode. Only drove it in Sport+ and Race, though.

 

Thanks for that input

 

Just got the car back. They did a control unit update n15/15. Also a transmission adaptation and a valve and wet clutch flush. Then they carried out a second adaptation. I did ask my service tech about the software update and was told it wasn’t out yet. Car seems to be driving smooth so far and is much better than before. Will update you guys after a couple of weeks of driving.