TipTronic Doesn't Work
 

So the other day I decided (after owning the car for 7 months) to use the TipTronic (?) ShifTronic (?) semi-manual whatever it's called system. I put it in 1 on the display, and began to drive, I then tried to shift it to 2 at around 1500RPMs and nothing happened, It shifted by itself. I stopped, and began driving again (starting at 1) and tried to shift as I drove through all gears, but the transmission decided it wasn't having it. It wanted to shift when it wanted to, and that's that.

Is there a reason behind this? MB checked the car last week (not because of this, but another reason) and they said the TCU, ECU and trans are perfectly fine. Fluid was changed over the summer. I'm stumped. :nix:

The Tiptronic only works if certain parameters are met. It is not a manual gear change. If a down shift would cause an over rev it will not change down. When you shift up it only determines the highest gear the transmission will go to. It will not change up unless it is appropriate. All it does is set parameters. It does not force a change.

It's basically Mercedes' version of t1ts on a bull. But as Glyn said, it won't let you do anything it doesn't want you to, ie, anything really fun. Most people don't touch it again after playing with it for a couple of days after a purchase.

That....stinks.

I was under the impression it would be like the TipTronic in my old 300M and the Charger. Aren't they (essentially) the same transmission? The Charger let me ride those gears with ease. I guess Mercedes engineered it to be more....dummy proof? Idk! haha

I'd call it Mercedes sucking any fun out of the tranny, but that's a tomato / tomahto kind of thing. :p:

It is another reason, though, why despite the truck-like feel of the manual tranny, it's still a less coma-inspiring choice for non-AMG applications. :zoom:

So if you were to put in paddle shifter on your steering wheel and connect the paddle buttons to the triptronic shifter then it'll still be just as useless.

It would give you extra GTA points, though. Running over hookers is optional.

Coma inducing sounds about right. I miss riding those 1st and 2nd gears and giving them a little gas and feeling that torque in my car. Sigh, I guess it's back to driving like a 60 year old...

You should be able to hold 1st & 2nd to max RPM by selecting 2nd and flooring it. If it won't do that you have dirty shifter micro switches.

You should be able to take it to max RPM in any gear by limiting the upchange with the Tiptronic.

I will give it a shot later tonight and see what happens. I just remember it didn't do anything when I tried. :nix:

The "tiptronic" on these cars is basically a gear limiter. Useful for forcing the engine to hold a lower gear (and therefore higher RPM) in situations where immediate acceleration is required, such as merging onto a highway from a city road.

If the car is in "3" for example, the tranny should automatically go between 1st and 3rd gear as needed, but won't go into 4th gear unless it's about to redline in 3rd.

Interesting. I thought I could manually shift it at a reasonable point. You'd think being an "auto-manual" it would allow you to do that. I keep forgetting to try it, but I will today after work. :zoom:

^ Not with MB, who love to nickel and dime us all. Only the AMG models have the feature where the exact gear is held (there are videos online). Go figure. :slap: