Facelift Kickdown doesn't work
 

We've seen quite a number of facelift cars now where the automatic gearbox kickdown simply doesn't work. It's nearing 50% to put a figure on it, so if you're not 100% yours works, then test it:

For the unitiated, kick down is designed so that when you hoof your foot right to the floor, the gearbox should 'kick down' to the fastest gear it can without over-revving the engine. Dont confuse this with the natural nature of the gearbox that may kick down 1 gear when you accellerate a bit.

To test:

Driving along, put the car in tiptronic and use the shifter to put the car in the highest gear it will go, 4th or 5th is ideal if you are doing > 30mph.

Now, floor the car and only if the kickdown is working will it change gear. If it is not working, then because you have tiptronic selected it will not change gear. Only the kickdown function (and anti-stalling) can override the gear selection in tiptronic.

To Fix:

This is the quickest, and cheapest fix ever. On the facelift car, the throttle was changed to 'drive by wire' so instead of a throttle cable, there is now just a potentiometer measuring your foot movements, this is why the facelift cars are slightly less responsive on the throttle than the prefacelift counterparts.

When they removed the throttle cable, they also had to re-invent kickdown, so you now have a big button quite visible under the throttle pedal. (see attachment)

This button can be turned, and in fact must be turned during installation at the factory to fit it under the covering plate.

Turn it clockwise to turn the kickdown on
Turn it anti-clockwise to turn kickdown off

Press the button with your hand in each position and you will hear the metallic sound of a contact switch, or not.

Let us know if your facelift car had no kickdown as I'd love to know just how many owners haven't really been unleashing the true performance +++

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...7&d=1232638377

Will try it in Sainsbury's car park tomorrow, ahem :D
Will let you know Ian

Did this this afternoon......................it was switched off!!!

Thanks for that!

Awesome.... enjoy the cheapest performance upgrade money isnt needed to buy +++

Sorry bout the lower MPG though :ROFL:

LPG remember!

:ROFL:

Tried mine yesterday, was switched on. The rapid move from 5th to 2nd was interesting. Just as well the road was clear :ROFL:

yep tried mine too and the waft turned into a hurricane lol :ROFL:
now wondering how much lower i can get the average mpg :p

So was it switched on already, or did you have the twist the knob? (oo-er) +++

My knob was already twisted no doubt in an attempt to make me go faster :eek3::snigger:
this is sounding more like the plot from a carry on film by the minute!

Well, I checked mine and it was most definately OFF. No doubt it has been off for the cars entire life (up to now) as it looks very unlikely to have moved from ON to OFF on its own. Also, why would anyone turn it to OFF when they might need it to save their bacon when overtaking or whatever.

Quite good really as it seems to indicate a lack of thrashing in the cars past.+++

Wooahh! Mine appears to be on...
 

...was having some fun in an empty car park in Nottingham in the snow without ESP. Mind you, if you're going sideways, it doesn't cut in much!!!

Then tried a 5th to 1st kick down at 20ish mph, and created a great deal of wheel spin:ROFL:

All good honest fun.

Interestingly, car seems to have a sharper throttle response since playing around with kick-down. Has it learnt my bad habits...?!:rolleyes:

Zip

Mine was on, will turn it off to see the diffrence now :rolleyes:

Kickdown off
 

Quite embarassed by this one. Years ago I had big time arguments with BMW over an inoperative kickdown on a 750, so I reckoned I knew what was going on with my autos.
However... I was so wrong... and now I have a different, an even more interesting, a fantastic car that has just got fantasticer.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!

I found with my kick down switched off it feels a bit more responsive from the off from 0 mph. Is this real or my imagination?

Id say it has to be your imagination.... The kickdown switch, and its internal switch on/off mechanism are totally seperate to the rest of the car and connected only by a pair of wires that will say 'kick down' - The ECU has no concept of whether the kick down switch is switched off, or simply not being activated.....

I do find, particularly on the S8's that they rev a bit too high sometimes and waste some of the low down grunt that they have.... By not kicking down, It can feel faster IMO...

Hi There,

Mine was turned off....Wow...What a rush. I'd previously had to play with the tiptronic stuff to get that kind of power....However it can do a 4/5 -> 2nd which i can't, i had to shuffle down waiting a sec or so.

I wonder if this feature often being off is the reason the S8 is often touted as being refined effortless power with no pin you to the back of your seat rawkessness.....However a 30ish kick down can really get the beast out of the machine :love:

Thanks,
Lee

Mine's definitely on! Checked it yesterday after wondering why it didn't kick down when I gave it a bootfull with my dad and brother-in-law in the car, but obviously didn't push hard enough as it just gathered pace in gear rather than smacking heads against head restraints

Tested it last night and it kicked down to 1st and positively turbo-like shove in the back as it nailed to the red line!!

Mine was also off,switched it on yesterday.

Very interesting thread.

I'll resist the urge to go out in the dark for a quick try, and have a go at checking the kickdown tomorrow.

Mine was definitely active.

Mine was off! Finally it kick down when i want it to.. This has bugging me since i bought the car..

Thanks for the info :)

Tested my 2006 D3 3.0 tdi yesterday and no kickdown happening. Checked the button and sure enough it was off. Clicked it clockwise as described, looking forward to trying it out tomorrow! I suppose it proves that the standard auto performance is more than adequate if previous owner did not notice in 63000 miles. Thanks for the info.

Jem.

2001 Audi S8
 

wow, finally learned what this is. I have a D2S8 with less than 60K miles and with this turned on, I believe I popped my ears.

The torque delivery is amazing! Kudos for the write up.

Cheers

WoW ... just Wow
 

i can not belive that i have owned this car for 2 years and never ever had any idea that this could be switched off :psimple click to the right and i now have a rocket ship !! cant begin to tell you how glad i am that i came across this thread

thanks again
truly the 8 god after all +++

LOL surely youre not gonna blame that for the great GTI International BMW embarassment!! :p

nope lol that truly was down to the intake manifold, after its all been done with new PTFE bushes its amazing really is like driving a different car im kicking myself for not doing it months ago +++

I think intake manifold would have only affected you in low rpm's in first gear in drag race as changing into other gears rpm's would be high enough for intake manifold to be in stage 3 as it probably was all the time if it was not working properly. Of course I can be wrong as I only have 32V and not 40V so it could be different.

And obviously kick down would not affect at all.

you are correct about the kick down but i belive that the intake manifold was a big factor as it only opens fully at 400 rpm before redline then as soon as it changes gear the rpm's drop to 4500rpm and the flaps close again i can feel a major difference in the way it pulls

http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1299429139

thats with the valves open all the time ie. broken

From my experience having done the same fix to the manifolds on a car with them faulty, after the fix, the pull throught the midrange is stronger - You notice after fixing it, that in fact is had a flat spot around 3000 rpm iirc.

It is worth fixing, you *do* notice the increased performance.... +++

i only used to get full pull from the engine at above 5000rpm and when it changed gear it dropped to 4000rpm A8 gearing remember so the pull from after the gear change was non existant before but now it pulls strong on the gear change +++

Did you take any photos of this fix? Where is the offending part are how doyou know if it's broken? I thought my car was a little hesistant on the track a week ago,

The problem is documented HERE Jim and there are addition threads about it on our forum HERE and HERE +++

Thanks! :)

i made my replacments out of PTFE worked great im still waiting to hear back off a company that are going to hopefully put them into production as a replacment part made of PTFE for me to make up repair kits and i will be selling them on the forum, this is moving a bit slower that what i intended but with it being a small fish the company have bigger things to do but it will be there for the offering at some point soon

I've done the test (flooring whilst in tiptronic mode) and it didn't change down, so my kickdown appears to be off. I've tried fumbling around in the dark with the thing below the accelerator, but I can't move it. It presses down, but doesn't move clockwise or anti-clockwise. Is there a knack to doing this, or does it just require more force??

I've tried again and this time it moved - it just needed a bit more pressure. Not tested properly (had a quick go, though it didn't feel a lot different than before).

You need to stomp the throttle so hard as to engage the switch in tip mode :)

Is it just on facelift models or can it be a problem on my introduktion 94' model?

/Jake

Just facelift. PF has switch on throttlebody