My W212 E200 changing gears at high revs and limp mode is off

[altinmyzeqari]

Last week I boughy Mercedes-Benz E200 of 2013 with automatic transmission 7G and gearbox code 722.996.

The car seems to be running just fine most often but sometimes I notice some problems in changing gears.

When the eco mode is on this one is triggered most often (but not only when the eco is on) because the car goes on and off too often.

When this problem is active the car will change the gears in high revs (about 2500-3000) even if the road is downhill. Also, the car will never reach to high gear, it will go up to 5th gear and no matter how much I speed up it doesn’t allow me and it won’t gear up. Car won’t accelerate even if I hit gas pedal at the end.

Also, the eco mode will stop responding after that, the car won’t work. Even if I stop at traffic light car still won’t turn off automatically like it normally does.
In this state I can’t switch car to manual either. The buttons won’t repsond.

I checked car at a MB specialist here in Albania and they detected a problem in DPF sensor and I changed it. This helped the car to remove the check engine.

So this problem doesn’t happen always but most probably to happen every day if eco mode is off or if I turn off and on too many times a day. When this happens I get these problems on car:
- Changes gears at high revs (2500-300) and won’t go more then 5th gear
- Won’t accelerate fast
- Can’t switch to manual (options on steering wheel do not respond)

Once I turn off and on the car doesn’t have any of the above problems.
Odometer has 165 000 km.

Now, the MB specialist that I went through is not giving me any clue. He says even if I open car I can’t tell anything since scanning doesn’t show anything.

Can anyone help me?

 

[AMGeed]

Has the ATF ever been changed?
I'd start with that and see if it improves things.

 

[altinmyzeqari]

Has the ATF ever been changed?
I'd start with that and see if it improves things.

I did that and still same things. Any idea other idea? The MB specialist is not helping me at all.

 

[AMGeed]

I did that and still same things. Any idea other idea? The MB specialist is not helping me at all.

I'm out of ideas I'm afraid. Hopefully someone else with more knowledge can help you.

 

[ChrisHGTV]

Is it diesel or petrol? I’ve recently had similar with my E250 diesel and thought it was a problem with the transmission. It however turned out to be the exhaust pressure sensor occasionally giving a bad signal and putting the car into limp mode. So nothing to do with the transmission at all. I didn’t always get the engine management light on either. Cheap and easy to change the part and it seems to drive so much better than even before. I think the petrols also have a similar sensor so could be worth investigating that? Apparently they fail quite a lot. I picked up the fault with my iCarsoft reader.

 

[MrGreedy]

Have the pipes to the changed pressure sensor been removed and blown through with an air line?

There appears to have been quite a few of this type of fault on the forum in the past month, including me with the E350 CDI w212. New pressure sensor cured it for me, but of course it might not be that, or could be more than one fault at the same time.

 

[DrNick]

Does sound like its down on torque. Because it goes away on power cycling, I'd also suspect is sensor related rather than, say an airleak. Anything that is related to measuring airflow would be the first port of call. Don't really see how the eco mode affects it though.

 

[ChrisHGTV]

Does sound like its down on torque. Because it goes away on power cycling, I'd also suspect is sensor related rather than, say an airleak. Anything that is related to measuring airflow would be the first port of call. Don't really see how the eco mode affects it though.

One challenge i found trying to diagnose my recent issue is that when the car goes into limp mode it can really mask the actual symptom related to the issue. In my case i was sure it was an issue with the transmission as the car started and ran fine and even gave full power on occasion - but the gear changes were clearly not right. But turns out the transmission issues were just a result of the limp mode being activated. In the good old days (well, 20 years ago!) it was much easier to diagnose issues because the symptoms weren't masked in any way. Certainly in the cars ive had anyway.

One advantage though - it forced me to buy an iCarsoft which identified the faulty sensor within minutes which i was able to change myself, reset/calibrate and all has been fine since.

 

[D2028]

The car seems to be running just fine most often but sometimes I notice some problems in changing gears.



When this problem is active the car will change the gears in high revs (about 2500-3000) even if the road is downhill. A - Changes gears at high revs (2500-300)

Watching this with interest as I’m having this on my 5g clk 220cdi.I’m not used to Mercedes and my first time using an automatic shift ( after 40+ years of manual transmissions!)so I had just assumed it was normal.

 

[altinmyzeqari]

Have the pipes to the changed pressure sensor been removed and blown through with an air line?

There appears to have been quite a few of this type of fault on the forum in the past month, including me with the E350 CDI w212. New pressure sensor cured it for me, but of course it might not be that, or could be more than one fault at the same time.

I did change the pressure according to diagnostic results but still same.
Even though I was there when the mechanic changed it and it did NOT blow through with an air line. You think this can make the problem still go on?
I am attaching the diagnostic results (The sensor now doesn't show when I diagnose again after changing the pressure sensor).

To me it sounds like a sensor or electrical fault because when the car starts, and the problem is not active it will not show until the car is off and back on. So I may drive 2-3 or more hours without turning the engine off and the problem will not appear. If the problem appears, it will show since start.

Also, if it is some air leak this problem should appear anytime right? Or at least this problem should appear even after driving a few km (even though the engine is not turned off)?

Please let me know what you think I should focused on.
Thanks

 

[MrGreedy]

given the amount of fault codes across various systems, it might be a different issue, or more than one issue.

Whenever there are multiple issues and also being flagged with the SAM, common advice is to check the battery voltage in the morning having left the car overnight to check battery condition, and put the battery on a good charge like with the ctek chargers. Are you able to give us any insight into battery condition or state of charge?

 

[altinmyzeqari]

Watching this with interest as I’m having this on my 5g clk 220cdi.I’m not used to Mercedes and my first time using an automatic shift ( after 40+ years of manual transmissions!)so I had just assumed it was normal.

Its not normal. Something is wrong but hopefully any sensor fault. Did you manage to find your problem?

 

[D2028]

Its not normal. Something is wrong but hopefully any sensor fault. Did you manage to find your problem?

Haven’t really gone into it yet, I’m still trying to figure out if I should buy an icarsoft and which one to get. I’m trying to decide between ICARSOFT MB V3.0 and ICARSOFT CR MAX ( might prove useful for other family members cars as well as mine.)
The car was serviced by Mercedes every year from new so I can only assume the ATF has been replaced at some stage. I have a printout of the service history from the previous owner but it doesn’t itemise particular service items just the generic service A and service B .

 

[D2028]

Just ordered the CR MAX

 

[altinmyzeqari]

Just ordered the CR MAX

That's a good tool, you save yourself and other family members money and time. Good decision friend

 

[D2028]

Thank you, looking forward to seeing how many fault codes it throws up

 

[MrGreedy]

given the amount of fault codes across various systems, it might be a different issue, or more than one issue.

Whenever there are multiple issues and also being flagged with the SAM, common advice is to check the battery voltage in the morning having left the car overnight to check battery condition, and put the battery on a good charge like with the ctek chargers. Are you able to give us any insight into battery condition or state of charge?

 

[altinmyzeqari]

given the amount of fault codes across various systems, it might be a different issue, or more than one issue.

Whenever there are multiple issues and also being flagged with the SAM, common advice is to check the battery voltage in the morning having left the car overnight to check battery condition, and put the battery on a good charge like with the ctek chargers. Are you able to give us any insight into battery condition or state of charge?

Battery insights are as follow:
Before starting car (Resting voltage)
UB: 12.4V ; IB: -8.0A
After car started:
UB 12.4V ; IB: 0.0A

To me battery health looks good, but I am not sure.
You think that the battery may be a cause to my problem?
Also, one thing that I have noticed so far is that this problem never occurs when the car rests more than 1 hour at least.
(Yesterday I drove 3 hours, took a break for 4 hours, drove 20 minutes, took another break for 2 hours and drove again and never faced this problem). Does this give you another idea what may be wrong?

 

[MrGreedy]

As I said, maybe it's not just one issue? But just guesses at arm's length.

12.4V seems low from memory. Should a healthy battery be around 12.7V?

 

[altinmyzeqari]

As I said, maybe it's not just one issue? But just guesses at arm's length.

12.4V seems low from memory. Should a healthy battery be around 12.7V?

Yes, it seems to be about 75% charged as far as I read online. Is there a possibility that the battery will cause the problem that I face or it has something to do with?