Mercedes E shutting itself off

[aetanner]

I do not have much expertise in Mercedes cars. I am writing about a problem I had and would appreciate your guidance.

I have a Mercedes E (2007 model) with an automatic gearbox. In the past I had a problem with this car, where after I start the car and while it is in D, it would get stuck in the third gear and would not go into the fourth gear. In such cases, after I stopped the car, and put the gear to P and then back to D the problem would go away. In any case, I mentioned this to the garage when I took the car for service, and they said they fixed it. For a while, I did not have this problem.

Recently I was driving (below 30 mph) on a deserted road on a rainy day and it seemed that I had the same problem. I thought, rather than stopping the car, if I shifted the gear from D to N, and then back to D, the problem would be solved. Instead, as soon I pushed the gear the car started chocking and it stopped, and the engine shut itself off.

After this incident, the car started normally and I continued to drive without a problem.

However, I am concerned about this development.
Is it normal that the car would shut itself off if the gear is shifted to N from D while driving?
Is this a sign of a bigger problem? (You can imagine what trouble this can cause in traffic.)
Have I damaged the car by trying to shift the gear to N while driving?
What can I do to ensure that this problem is not repeated, so that no harm is done to myself and my family?

I do not drive much (25000 km in almost 4 years) but I am worried because the safety of my family is at stake. I will go to a Mercedes garage but I am concerned that I may not find someone who would patiently to a novice like myself. So any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[corned]

Firstly, welcome to the forum.

I take it that the car has the tiptronic gear selection, by moving the lever from side to side when in 'D'?

When you experience this problem, can the gears be manipulated by use of the tiptronic feature? Or when it is stuck in third, is it really stuck, and the gearbox 'ignores' the tiptronic selection?

When you say you select neutral and put it back in drive, how fast are you travelling in this situation? Putting the car into neutral at speed would not do any damage. But then selecting drive and causing the gearbox to try to match output shaft speed (high) with engine crankshaft speed (low), may not be very kind to the gearbox.

My advice, which I am sure will be echoed on here, is to get the stored fault codes (if there are any) read at a garage which has the STAR diagnostic equipment.

If there are gearbox problems, this will reveal them.

Good luck.

 

[GordonTarling]

Extract from owner's manual -

To avoid damage to the transmission, never shift the automatic transmission into neutral position N while driving.

 

[aetanner]

corned: Thanks for your views

Firstly, let me note that my car is a Mercedes E220 CDI.

I am not well-versed in car terminology, but I don't think I have tiptronic gear selection, because the lever cannot be moved sideways. It can only be moved vertically: D, N, R and P are the possibilities.

When I had this problem in the past (the gear not changing up) the car would not accelerate, and I would simply stop the car, not turning the engine off; I would then put the gear into P, and then back into D, and the car would drive normally. This time, I thought of shifting to N (vertically one level up from D) while driving and the car started stalling and it stopped.

I am afraid I was travelling slowly (because the gear would not change up), at around 30 mph, so I may have done damage to the car, in view of your explanation.

In any case, I will go to a well-equiped Mercedes garage and explain the situation.

I am wondering, though, if anyone else had this problem, of the car shutting down when the driver shifts the gear from D to N while driving.

Thanks.

 

[Mr E]

Firstly, let me note that my car is a Mercedes E220 CDI.

I am not well-versed in car terminology, but I don't think I have tiptronic gear selection, because the lever cannot be moved sideways. It can only be moved vertically: D, N, R and P are the possibilities.

I'm pretty sure that you'll have a tiptronic box - you'll have the 5-speed auto in the E220. I've had it in both of my E's dating back to 2004.

You'll find that, when in "D" you can move the selector from side to side. This will happen in "D" only. As you do do, you'll see the cluster display change from "D" to "4" to "3" and so on. Pushing the selector to the left will move the range down, and to the right brings it back up.

A handy thing to note is that a quick double-tap to the right puts the gearbox into the highest gear applicable for the roadspeed / load.

 

[gazzz]

Like Mr E I'm pretty sure that you have a tiptronic gear box.

Tiptronic means that the gearbox can be set to auto or semi-automatic. There's a description of it here though you can find no end of other references if you Google. So, select D and the car will behave as a normal automatic; push the gearstick slightly to the left when in D and it changes to a sequential auto i.e. you have to tell it to change up (push to the right), or change down (push to the left).

What I suspect is happening is that you are accidentally nudging the gearstick while driving and this is engaging the tiptronic function and dropping down a gear - which it will then stay in until you either select another gear or turn it back to auto.

I'm pretty sure the best course of action if tiptronic is accidentally engaged is to move the gearstick to the right and hold for a second or so. You can do this when driving. This will re-engage the normal auto system which will then take over gear changes for you.

If any of the above is wrong then I'm sure someone will correct me but that's how it seems to work on my car.

HTH

 

[G-Force]

My thoughts too gazzz,
I done the same thing when i got my car years ago...accidently bumped it down a cog and wondered what was going on as it seemed stuck, a friend with an E class was driving down the motorway and ( for some strange reason) put his car in to N while driving then back to D, the car wasn't at all happy and didn't reengage the gear...he had to coast to a stop....put it into P then back tp D to continue his journey.....let that be a lesson to us all...don't select N whle driving as you may need to coast to a halt!!!!!

 

[corned]

You need to see what the instrument cluster is telling you. See the picture here (courtesy of Autotrader):

The bottom of the central display shows you the gear selection, the odometer, and the comfort/sport gearbox mode selection.

You need to see what the left hand (gear selection) is telling you.

Down at the gear lever itself, there is a label which only shows longitudinal options, i.e. P, R, N, D, but you should also see, at the other side of the lever, a label showing + and -. When in D, you can nudge the lever from side to side and make semi-automatic gear changes. It's not an actual sideways lever movement, like the Jaguar 'J'-gate, just a nudge from side to side. There are micro-switches adjacent to the D position which enable gears to be manually influenced. As has been said above, you can press and hold the lever to the right and it will go from whatever gear you have already selected, up through the gears and back to D - fully automatic operation. You will see the display changing, 2, 3, 4, D, as you hold the lever to the right.

I know this sounds long winded, but it really is a piece of cake to operate.

 

[renault12ts]

Amazing!! How can you not know about the gear selector functions??

 

[corned]

Go easy on him, Renault!

We don't know yet that this is the issue...

 

[renault12ts]

But we do know he doesn't know he has a "tip" box.