Any one notice that extra notch after you floor the gas pedal? Is there a reason for this? its like your pressing in a trigger of somekind but I dont know.

Thought it might flash the high beams or something cool like that but I havent seen that happen yet.

Dude, that's the NOS!

OK, seriously, I have felt that also, but have no idea. I was thinking that it may be that I screwed up the Brabus pedal install, so it is good to hear that someone else feels that as well.

It's the kick down button, it causes the the car to rev to the higher RPMs before shifting to make it accerlerate faster or something...(am I making anysense??) Anyways, in layman's terms...depressing the the pedal all the way and hitting that switch will make the car accelerate "faster". heheh, put it into 4th and mash the pedal and see what happens...

I guess I am still afraid to downshift to forth and then mash the gas before engaging the gear... but I will try it on the way home

Yep Goldeni245 you are right, its really evident on the auto. if you are cruising in 5th and mash the gas all the way to the floor and do not hit the button it will only go to 4th gear, but hit that button and it will raise the revs and then snap into 3rd gear.

I wish it would slam my shifter from 6th into 4th automatically... That would rule...and be impressive looking

yup, the bmw has the same thing. i hardly ever use it though.

Uh...I think the kickdown feature only applies to automatics. I don't think the button is connected to anything on the 6spds. But, go ahead and floor it before engaging the gear and tell us what happens!

Anyway, that button is hard to press on my car. It's even harder to keep it pressed. My leg/foot wimps out after a couple seconds...maybe I need to start doing some squats.

where is this button you guys are talking about?

It's underneath the gas pedal, it's called the kick down switch. It's like overdrive, if you want to pass someone, you mash the pedal all the way and downshifts and you fly! My 1963 220sb has one of those....

Oh gawd...here we go again...

Sorry, it just reminds me of the time a guy tried to convince me that the overdrive button on his 95 Ford truck's gear selector gave him 10 extra hp in every gear.

Interesting though... I didn't know that the kickdown mode was activated by switch. I always thought that it's just if you push your pedal down after a certain point and the internal computer reads it. I'll have to try that next chance i get.

My understanding is: it does. But it only kicks down 1 gear. Activate the switch and it kicks down 2 gears. I'm just rewording what Timmy wrote above.

Ah, ok. That clears it up.

Do you just press hard on the gas pedal until you hear a clicking noise?

I had this feature on a volvo coupe ten years ago and thought it was exclusive to that car, I was wrong. But I loved to see it (or feel it) on the 240 automatic. The button is nice once you get used to it. It allows flexability to fly if you have a lead foot like me, or take it easy and probably saves gas and engine wear by not revving car as high during normal (normal people) driving! I just love the feeling of being in control of downshifting somewhat when driving. Nice extra feature!
Enjoy,
Yacoub

Avlis, it'll kick down as low as it can go...I use it all the time in my c230k automatic. If I'm driving behind someone at 40 and it opens up so I can pass them, it will work like this: I'm at 40, so it's usually in 5th at that point...push the pedal in and it'll shift to fourth, but if I hit the kickdown button, it'll go all the way to second from the start...really helps get that umph right away to pass someone.

dave

How do u know exactly what gear its in with an auto?



By the way i also feel the click when i floor it.

I always think i am pressing down to hard.

Umm... well, just get familiar enough with your car's RPM/MPH ratios and determining your gear is very easy. If you find it difficult, just find some standard MPHs (20, 40, 60, 80), then touch-shift your car down thru the appropriate gears and take a mental note of the RPM range the tach lands in for each gear. After a while you'll be able to tell what gear you're in just by comparing the two guages. That's how I do it. What I like to do is find one gear where the tach and the speedometer seem to increase (angular speed) at the same rate while accelerating. Usually that's around 3rd gear. So if the tach rises faster than MPH, it's a lower gear, if it rises slower, it's a higher gear.

Exactly prex...it's pretty easy to tell by listening to the RPMs. If you can't tell, well, practice listening to the engine...it's a good thing to listen to it anyway.

dave

For all manual owners...sorry, but this feature does not work for us. Shifted down from 6th to 5th last night and waited for the NOS/supercharger to kick in...sorry...I woke up and came back to reality...nothing....

Yeah that is a very good way to tell. I always know what gear it is in when i accelerate and pay attention but sometimes its ard to know exactly like when i am driving and just floor it. but i guess i can tell if i want to.

Afaik on the automatic it activates the kickdown feature which tells the gearbox to go to the lowest gear possible to get maximum accelleration.

For both the manual and the automatic it also works as an override for the speed limiter. When you limit the speed to say 50km/h and press the pedal nothing happens after you reach 50. Press the pedal all the way down to activate the button and it will accelerate beyond the 50km/h limit.

What I was wondering, in some cars the kickdown button also disconnects the airco compressor from the engine (to get max HP). Does this also happen with the benz?

Mark

What speed limiter are you talking about? The only speed limiter there is in our cars is the top speed limiter that electronically limits the speed, depending on the market, at ~130 mph or ~240km/h. There is no way to override this limiter, other than re-programming the ECU.

The one on the cruise control? Hmmm, it's standard over here, isn't that on the US cars? (can't imagine those cars not having cruise)..

Mark