my5rox

Help! Is there a way to disable the steering mounted shifters? They are jsut way too easy to press even when you dont intend to.

ddcha

we did that a couple of times too, but in our first year of ownership. I'd like to disable it too, but haven't hit them since.

lkchris

You're talking about the steering wheel buttons or paddles.

They are simply switches and clearly can be disconnected.

Whether this creates an error message is unknown to me.

blittle

Disabling the paddle shifters ( if possible ) will mean that there will be no way to tell the transmission to remain in a specific gear! Why would anyone want to disable the capability???

mdadgar

<boggle>

- Mark

Fourdiesel

And why would one want to tell the tranny to remain in a specific gear? Especially when, using the paddles, the transmission won't upshift anyway even if you tell it to do so! And it certainly won't remain in that higher gear if it doesn't want to, even if you tell it to.

mdadgar

Other direction. I'd like to keep it in a lower gear (while towing downhill, for example) to maximize engine braking.

- Mark

LEOSOPHIE

In city driving I can always upshift 1 gear and get better fuel mileage although I have a gas and can't speak to the diesel.

blittle

Try traveling a one lane dirt/mud/snow ( unplowed ) road in the hills of Vermont and the ability to tell the trans to not go beyond 2nd is pretty helpful. Likewise, if you are towing....... there are times when holding in a lower gear will help with long downhill braking. So its not so much the ability to UPSHIFT for me....... it's the other way around..... and I would not have a vehicle that doesn't allow for that.

43221B

I used to think the paddles wouldn't upshift under acceleration but someone on here mentioned it had about a 2 second delay. I started paying attention and sure enough, it does indeed shift up. It would be cool to have an "economy" mode that could be selected for the diesel because it really doesn't need to run above 2000 rpm during normal acceleration. It actually shifts rather softly/comfortably right around 2000.

lkchris

Descending a snow-covered mountain road for one example.

David3

[QUOTE=blittle;4590105]Try traveling a one lane dirt/mud/snow ( unplowed ) road in the hills of Vermont and the ability to tell the trans to not go beyond 2nd is pretty helpful. Likewise, if you are towing....... there are times when holding in a lower gear will help with long downhill braking. So its not so much the ability to UPSHIFT for me....... it's the other way around..... and I would not have a vehicle that doesn't allow for that.[/QUOTE

I'll second that, you can almost virtually come to a stop without using your brakes on a snow covered hill. Having a 550 with snow boards for tires, that is an invaluable asset.