Two stage accelerator?

[MkVIGTI]

I know Toyota, Honda and Mitsubishi don't have it either. Some have an O/D switch on the gear lever though. But then again, the manual mode of the dsg will still shift up when the engine reaches cut-out.

[stickshift3000]

I think you guys need to get out and drive more cars.

The kickdown button behind the pedal used to be common in older cars, instead nowadays it often relies on throttle position and ecu parameters (revs, load etc) on most newer cars.

[TomC]

What would the point of a kick down switch in an automatic car be anyway? In a full auto box, it will kick down gears automatically when you apply more throttle in any situation, it won't "hold" a higher gear in place like the M mode in DSG will. The only way an auto box will hold a gear is if you specifically change into a lower on the selector. No auto box should hold a higher gear when you apply more throttle because by applying more throttle you're telling the gearbox you want to go faster, hence it changes down accordingly. I drove my old man's 335i last weekend and even with the auto in his car in "manual" mode, it will still kick down when you mash the throttle. That's why the manual mode in DSG is so good, because it's not just an auto gearbox with paddles

So, along with never experiencing a kickdown switch in an auto car myself, I find it logically pointless to have one in an auto car.

[pologti18t]

What would the point of a kick down switch in an automatic car be anyway? In a full auto box, it will kick down gears automatically when you apply more throttle in any situation, it won't "hold" a higher gear in place like the M mode in DSG will. The

because in the olden days the transmission didn't know what the throttle position was - cable operated throttles.
The kickdown switch forced the transmission to shift down gears immediately rather than wait for it to respond based on other parameters.

[Corey_R]

Yeah... so I've been finding some information on what era of cars we're talking about here, and most are pre-90s even. So it's not just a case of driving more cars, it's a case of being in your 40's or 50's and being old enough to remember when electronics were primative etc.

In any case, none of that has any relation to what we're talking here because the "kickdown switch" in a VW is NOT for automatic modes, it's for "manual".

[Ryan_R]

Well, it works just fine in auto mode as well, as I've been playing with it this week.

[Brian916]

my 2c worth (Yeah, I remeber them and the fact you could actually get 6 lollies for that...)

In the 'bad old days', auto's a combination of torque/vacuum to change down -'kick down'- and there was no switch. My VL commodore had one of the first electronic controlled boxes, with a 'sport' function. Electronic autos use switch to change the logic from 'economy' mode to 'sport' (Sport - change the shift point to higher in the rev range and hold gears longer) mode as well as activating an elecronic 'kick down' function.

From what I've read, the switch is either a single or dual funtion one.

1. Switches logic to 'sport' and kicks back a gear (or two)
2. Switches logic for 'sport' mode only
3. Switches on a 'kick down'

Oh, there's also an article I read somewhere where one of the vehicle makers (VW? through Porche/Audi/Lambo?) were also going to have a dual ECU map for the engine (Sport and economy again) and doing the foot-to-the-floor would change logic to sport on the box, kick down a couple of gears, and change the engine map to a 'less fuel efficient' one.


Now, this is what I've read and been told by auto tranny repairers (replacers now as most can't be rebuilt anymore). Seemed logical.

[Corey_R]

Yeah - we had a VL commodore. There was a "sports/power" switch on the auto selector, but there wasn't a kick-down switch under the pedal.

[MiiLos]

i had the switch on my MkV TDi and all it did once engaged was drop a gear or two to get faster acceleration - it did this weather i was in drive mode, or sport mode. oh an i dont remember ever trying it while i was in manual mode.

[brad]

The reason why it is called a "kickdown" switch is because in the old days, you had to mash the throttle into the floor quite hard & fast to get the gearbox to change down a gear (or if you had a real fancy gearbox, 2 gears). This was to create a dramatic drop in vacuum at the kickdown modulator (rear rhs on a trimatic IIRC) which in combination with the kickdown cable (throttle position cable) would tell the gearbox to drop a gear or two. If you've ever seen a holden or falcon driving along belching plumes of white smoke, it has ruptured the diaphram in the modulator & is sucking auto trans fluid straight into the inlet.

I can't think of any cars that had an electrical kickdown switch as such (but I'm sure there were) but a lot of Toyotas had a switch to turn the the AC off at 80%+ throttle, thus giving a little extra power for overtaking.