I have just bought one of these BMW's, 2000 318I steptronic auto  gearbox and would like some help.
Started the car and pulled away in drive , only to find that the gears did not change . Managed to drive the car to a service station in first gear only. After 3 days the service station told me that there was 4 faults that came up and they could not determine what they were and  reseted the faults , now the gearbox is Ok again. They also  told me that a engine fualt can cause the steptronic gearbox to go into a state of Limbo. Is this true ?
or what is the route cause of the problem.  if you had the same problem what was done to overvome this issue from occuring again.

Mercedes has a "limp home mode" for the transmission, which will keep the transmission in 2nd gear for your whole drive home.  I'm not sure what would cause it, but in the manual, it described this. Do you have the w/s option next to the gear select - for winter or standard - if you have it in "w", the car will start off in 2nd gear instead of first, and maybe there is an error there - just a guess here.

-Jeff