twentysevenlitres

Hi guys - came across this little bit of wisdom from our friends over in England...

It seems that there was an oversight in a lot of D2's when they switched to drive-by-wire and incorporated the kickdown switch.

It seems that the kickdown switch can be switched on and off. And that a lot of the cars arrived in customers hands with the switch set to off.

Now North American coding may be different, but the test I was given to perform was to drive the car in tiptronic mode through to 3rd or 4th gear and floor it.
The kickdown switch should override tiptronic gear selection and select the lowest possible gear for the speed the car is doing.

If it doesn't do this, check the kickdown switch and turn it clockwise to turn it on - it's about 1/4 turn with a pretty positive 'click'.
Then repeat the tiptronic test.

It worked for me!
4th into 2nd at 70km/h!

Good luck to anyone who tries it out - let me know how you go by posting it here...

A8CT

I could never figure out why my other D2 felt so much faster. I found this out accidentally when I removed the lower mat while I was doing something else. Yes, definitely worth checking.

2001 S8

With the car turned off I pushed on the kickdown switch with my thumb. Should the switch have a firm resistance to pushing-in and then move down quickly or no resistance to pushing in with smooth downward movement?

silverd2

In my experience it feels exactly the same on or off ... you simply make sure it is turned clockwise.

Even without having it set to tip, if turned off, it will only drop down maybe one gear when floored, rather than dropping to the lowest possible gear. This is how I discovered I'd turned mine off while doing some interior work.
When going about 50mph, flooring it only dropped it from 5th to 4th ... once turned on, it would drop to 2nd when floored at 50mph, as it should.

2001 S8

Sounds like I need to go for a drive, and clean out the cobwebs in the engine : )

Thanks.