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Old 22nd January 2009, 02:14 PM
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Location: Harrogate, North Yorkshire
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Lightbulb 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

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Last edited by Architex_mA8tey; 28th December 2011 at 06:26 PM. Reason: Embed Photos
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