I've fairly recently sold my manual 525i and bought an automatic Mitsubishi Galant. Only when I'd had it a week or so did I notice that it had a kickdown button. Now I've driven quite a few automatics and I've never noticed this on any others. Maybe I'm really unobservant, I dunno.
Basically, this button sits under the accelerator pedal and when pressed it shifts the car down a gear (as long as you're not going to break the rev limit by doing so). Basically, it means that if you're overtaking or you want a boost of power and the gearbox doesn't kickdown when you want it to, you can force the issue by pressing the accelerator a bit harder (you're aware you're doing it) which hits this button and gives you a lower gear.
Do all automatics do this? Have I been missing out on all the others I've driven? It's one of the handiest things I've ever seen in a car.
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Some Mercedes have a 2 stage kickdown, first stage will cause the gearbox to change down 1 gear, second stage will change down 2 gears - you can feel the 2 stage switch under the accelerator. There is also an inhibitor to prevent the gearbox changing down when the car is cornering to prevent brown trouser moments in the wet or on snow. Strangest of all, when driving at high speed with the cruise control engaged, the car changes down a gear if necessary to maintain speed.
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I assumed the gear-changing thing was common to all cars with cruise - the cruse control sets the speed and the gearbox does what it needs to in order to maintain that speed.
Is there such thing as cruise control on a manual car?
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"Is there such thing as cruise control on a manual car? "
There certainly is :-)
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And air conditioning.
And metallic paint and..............
--
I wasna fu but just had plenty.
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So what happens when you've got it set to a top gear speed (let's say 70) and you hit a hill that requires a change-down - you just have to take over from the cruise?
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The cruise just cuts out in those circumstances, or at least it used to on my Mondeo.
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Guess it vary..... but on the Beemers a gear change will automatically disengage the cr/control.
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A manual car with CC will have a switch on the clutch and brake pedal. Should either pedal be pressed, the CC disengages. An auto will only have the switch on the brake pedal and will obviously disengage when pressed. It will also disengage the CC when knocked out of D into N. I'm not sure if this applies to other autos, but if I move the gearlever in my auto Vectra over into manual mode I can change up and down the gears and the CC remeins enabled.
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In reply to Bagpuss:
I don't think this applies to W203 - mine doesn't. I have seen it drop a few mph when climbing.
What is also very strange is that my 318i (manual) will keep to a CC constant speed (above 40mph) no matter what (within reason of course).
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The CC on my honda accord (manual) does the same. When going up or down a hill when engaged, you can feel the car adjusting acceleration to compensate.
I had never really thought CC was that useful or practical in this country, but i use it regularly on mootrways now.
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It's only when you have your CC on that you really notice how much other drivers vary their speed. On countless occasions I've had my cruise set to a constant speed and found myself overtaking the same car several times on a journey, only to be overtaken back. Not as part of some game, but just through the course of another driver changing their speed so much.
Cruise is so much handier than I expected it to be in Britain - largely I suppose due to the ability to cancel and then either set the cruise at the current speed or resume back to the previous speed. I still find it a little unnerving when the car automatically ups the power to cope with a hill though.
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Back to topic - on some cars, the kickdown button also cuts the air conditioning and other large power-sapping items to ensure that maximum engine power is available for overtaking.
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HJ wrote above that the kickdown is aggressive.
Personally I have always found the ckickdown to be somewhat sluggish, and prefer using manual selection of a lower gear as the result is more prompt. I was inspired to do this by a thread about 15 months ago.
This may be a reflection of driving late 1980s or 1970s technology - my autobox experience being limited to W123 Mercs and an Audi 100.
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HJ wrote above that the kickdown is aggressive. Personally I have always found the ckickdown to be somewhat sluggish, and prefer using manual selection of a lower gear as the result is more prompt. I was inspired to do this by a thread about 15 months ago. This may be a reflection of driving late 1980s or 1970s technology - my autobox experience being limited to W123 Mercs and an Audi 100.
In some cars kickdown can be very agressive - I suppose the main factor is going to be how much power you have at your disposal.
My (ex)Omega 3.0 was certainly quite agressive if "full" kickdown was used, especially if in the box was in sport mode.
Incidentally, if CC was in use and you used the "resume" function after slowing (considerably), it would use kickdown to accelerate very agressively back to the set speed.
My (ex) 3.5l 5 series, though not as agressive as the Omega, was pretty quick on kickdown too.
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