E300 td power / gear issue.

[greenshed]

Hi, i have an automatic 1998 e300 td and its my first MB. Problems started at the weekend where it starts off driving well, changes through gears and pulls strongly....then it sometimes decides that it will not rev higher than 4000, wont change up or down gears unless you take you foot off the accelerator and put it back on again. The car just feels very lacklustre and more like my old astra 1400 automatic when this happens . If i pull over, put it in park, turn engine off then on again then full power comes back....for a while. Anyone any ideas what this might be? thankyou.

 

[Olivier]

I'll start with the cheap options:
did you change any of the fuel / pre filters?

 

[greenshed]

No, I didnt. Only got the car a couple of weeks ago from a good friend. He didnt have this problem & i didnt notice it for the first week or so of driving.