Manual use of Auto Box

[JonFB]

Hullo, been offline for ages, so in the process of catching up on all the goss and new threadz!

A question for those better educated than myself...

I have a W203 and when wallowing round the fens in Cambridgeshire I initially took great delight in controling the auto box by pushing the lever left to engage a lower gear prior to a tight bend. I also pressed and held it left to get the optimum gear for overtaking etc.

After quite sometime of this (maybe 45mins to 90mins) I noticed that the box was not changing up, i.e. I would start to accelerate on a straight and it would stick in a high gear until I manually changed the gear by knocking the shift to the right.

I wasn't driving like a maniac or pushing the car, so it can't be that it held the gear as it thought I wanted to go fast.

This continued for the rest of the journey (i.e. I had to do all the gear changes until I got home) but has not occured since, but that's because I'm terrified there maybe a fault with the box and I have rarely used the manual overide.

Is the box so dreadfully clever that it realises it's being intereferred with and stops changing to leave it up to the idiot behind the wheel or do you reckon I may have the start of a (no doubt expensive) problem on my hands!

Any advise would be gratefully received (reassuring or otherwise).

BTW Not sure if this is related but ever since I have had the car, when I leave home and move out the drive it changes into second but holds on to third for ages, well beyond when I would manually change gear).

Cheers peeps.



Jon

 

[television]

Hullo, been offline for ages, so in the process of catching up on all the goss and new threadz!

A question for those better educated than myself...

I have a W203 and when wallowing round the fens in Cambridgeshire I initially took great delight in controling the auto box by pushing the lever left to engage a lower gear prior to a tight bend. I also pressed and held it left to get the optimum gear for overtaking etc.

After quite sometime of this (maybe 45mins to 90mins) I noticed that the box was not changing up, i.e. I would start to accelerate on a straight and it would stick in a high gear until I manually changed the gear by knocking the shift to the right.

I wasn't driving like a maniac or pushing the car, so it can't be that it held the gear as it thought I wanted to go fast.

This continued for the rest of the journey (i.e. I had to do all the gear changes until I got home) but has not occured since, but that's because I'm terrified there maybe a fault with the box and I have rarely used the manual overide.

Is the box so dreadfully clever that it realises it's being intereferred with and stops changing to leave it up to the idiot behind the wheel or do you reckon I may have the start of a (no doubt expensive) problem on my hands!

Any advise would be gratefully received (reassuring or otherwise).

BTW Not sure if this is related but ever since I have had the car, when I leave home and move out the drive it changes into second but holds on to third for ages, well beyond when I would manually change gear).

Cheers peeps.



Jon

Hi Jon, do not hold the lever to the left,if you are in top,and you want to drop two gears,knock the stick twice and the car will stay in that gear,when you get up to max revs that you want for that gear,knock the stick to the right to go up a gear, or twice to go back to top.

If you are driving say in traffic, and the car is in 2nd,knock the stick to the right and it will change up 1 gear.

never hold the stick over to the left or right.

Malcolm

 

[Algygale]

Hi..
When i do that with my tiptronic..it wont change untill its right in the redline & possibly on the rev limiter..but it does change.
but if you pull it to the right & hold it so it goes back into Drive then goes back to normal.
Does take a few seconds to settle down again.
I think the gearbox memorises the way you are driving so will thrash the car around if you wish.

 

[whitenemesis]

Hi Television

My owner's manual states;

To select the most effective shift range: press and hold the selector lever to the left towards D–.

The automatic transmission will shift to a range which allows ideal acceleration and deceleration. To do this, the automatic transmission will shift down one or more gears.

'05 W203 270CDI

 

[television]

Hi Television

My owner's manual states;

To select the most effective shift range: press and hold the selector lever to the left towards D–.

The automatic transmission will shift to a range which allows ideal acceleration and deceleration. To do this, the automatic transmission will shift down one or more gears.

'05 W203 270CDI

Mine says just press briefly. By holding you release once the gear is shown in the disply,you then release.

Malcolm

 

[JonFB]

Hmm, thanks guys. I heard about the "hold the lever to the left" facility on this site, and I have to say it is brilliant when overtaking, i.e. it is instant and goes into a sensible gear for immediate overtaking. With my sleeping C200K, flooring the accelerator results in a "duh" moment from the dear car, whereby you loose valuable seconds whilst you wait for the dear thing to light its blue touchpaper.

So I reckon the holding to the left (as well as "knocking it" left) is okay and a red herring to the gearboxes apparent reluctance to resume being automatic when I've been playing with it a while.

Still, I don't hear anybody sounding the bells of doom, so will naively assume it's not the end of the world and maybe I will play with the 'box a bit more and see if it reoccurs.

Anyone had any thoughts on it holding onto second first time it's started?



Jon