Problems with 2006 Mercedes-Benz M-Class POWER TRAIN

Two problems - first, transmission do not switch higher than second speed. upon engine restart, vehicle drove properly. second, on another occasion, i was sitting at a traffic light and when i attempted to pull off, the vehicle started driving very slow and rough. i pulled to the side of the road; turned off the engine and waited for a few seconds. when i started the vehicle again and attempted to drive away, the vehicle drove properly. mercedes dealership is aware of these issues, and also many of people i know who have mercedes with same transmission type - valve body/electric plate needs to be replaced in auto transmission. *tr

2006 ml350 transmission failure: while exiting from interstate, i notice that the car was jerking/knocking when i was slowing down. a couple of miles on the surface streets at 30-40 mph i noticed that the jerking became worse and finally the car went into neutral gear without any power delivered to the engine. the car stopped on the middle of the road. later that evening i got it towed to the dealership and was informed that the transmission was blown out and need to be rebuilt or replaced with an ~$8000 bill. the car has 58k miles with all service records and not missing a single service. i am told that this is out of the warranty zone. i found that there is a transmission issue in most of ml3500 for 2006 models. i think that i am being ripped off and the mercedes should fix this via recall. *tr