Early Owner Feedback

[pulsar]

@pulsar Exactly. This is how most cars are, but people here will excuse anything Genesis does for some reason. Unfortunately, the G70 is not capable of this as it has no manual gate on the shifter. It'll act exactly like your G37 did if you shifted while in D (i.e. it'll allow you to shift temporarily, and then go back to D eventually. If you're in Sport mode, it won't go back to D unless you stop (at which point, it will go back to D regardless which mode you're on), and it'll downshift and upshift for you regardless. As @Toddasaurus said in his example, if you're in 3rd gear at ~3000RPM, for example, and you press the accelerator all the way, it will downshift regardless. Very unfortunate oversight not to include a manual gate on the shifter; I assume they did it for liability reasons.

Thank you for the clarification so when I buy later in the year I won’t be trying to figure out how to make the G70 act like my G37S for manual mode. To be honest I did not use full manual all that much anyway. My wife would get pissed at me if I put it in M1 and floored it while paddle shifting all the while.

 

[Toddasaurus]

Just wanted to clarify and make sure everyone knows this. The G70, when in Sport mode, will allow you to stay in a full manual mode but with 3 exceptions.
1 - when redlining the gear, it will auto upshift for you....UNLESS you have TC and SC disabled, if so, it will let you hit the revlimiter.
2 - when RPM's are too low (ie lugging the engine, less than 1k RPM's) it will downshift for you.
3 - when pushing the gas pedal past the 'kickdown' point, which is felt by pressing the pedal until you feel resistance, then click the pedal past said point, the tranny will downshift IF your RPMs are low enough.

I'm planning on playing with the gas pedal tomorrow night to see if I can bypass the kickdown switch. I am very doubtful, however, as I think pedal, kickdown switch, and TPS are all integrated together. I'll post my findings. It would be awesome to see if it can be bypassed.

 

[NLJ]

I think the TCU will only let you have fun for so long and then try to protect itself!

 

[Toddasaurus]

I think the TCU will only let you have fun for so long and then try to protect itself!

I think you're right.

 

[ephone1]

It would be nice to have the kickdown be a settable feature. I will say that many times i have had my BMW in manual mode on the Highway for long stretches, then forgot - floor the car and nothing happens. In those cases, the kickdown would be welcome.

 

[pulsar]

Just wanted to clarify and make sure everyone knows this. The G70, when in Sport mode, will allow you to stay in a full manual mode but with 3 exceptions.
1 - when redlining the gear, it will auto upshift for you....UNLESS you have TC and SC disabled, if so, it will let you hit the revlimiter.
2 - when RPM's are too low (ie lugging the engine, less than 1k RPM's) it will downshift for you.
3 - when pushing the gas pedal past the 'kickdown' point, which is felt by pressing the pedal until you feel resistance, then click the pedal past said point, the tranny will downshift IF your RPMs are low enough.

I'm planning on playing with the gas pedal tomorrow night to see if I can bypass the kickdown switch. I am very doubtful, however, as I think pedal, kickdown switch, and TPS are all integrated together. I'll post my findings. It would be awesome to see if it can be bypassed.

If you find an actual mechanical switch somewhere, seems it could be bypassed. The computer, once the TPS gets to the point it’s expecting a kick down, could set off a service light when it figures out what has happened.

 

[Toddasaurus]

If you find an actual mechanical switch somewhere, seems it could be bypassed. The computer, once the TPS gets to the point it’s expecting a kick down, could set off a service light when it figures out what has happened.

Agreed. I'm expecting such a complication. You know what they say though, there's one way to find out for sure.

 

[Toddasaurus]

Okay, removed the gas pedal and got it figured out. The pedal has a mechanical clicker attached with gives you the feel for the kickdown point. However, it is not a wired switch as I was hoping...










...the clicker is purely for feel. I did a test drive without it and when floored the car will still 'kickdown' as before if your RPMs are low enough. It appears the kickdown is integrated into the TPS and/or the TCU shift logic. The only way around it (as far as I know) would be by a piggyback unit, or a ECU and/or TCU mod/flash.


Boo...

 

[GenericUsername]

Thanks for making the effort to find a solution. Honestly, this was a fairly obvious outcome because most modern cars do not have a separate kickdown switch that sends any data to the ECU. The ECU will simply cause a downshift when throttle reaches a certain point. Others claiming that you could simply hit the pedal until the kickdown point but don't exceed that need to realize that you're not using "100% throttle" at that point, so it's not only a compromise, it's not even the same thing.

I will reiterate that the lack of a manual gate in the shifter is a huge disappointment and shortcoming. I guess we should be thankful that we at least have paddles

 

[pulsar]

Thanks for the pictures and explanation. Not sure what my G37S had for I did not floor it all that much and when I did may not have been that observant as to kick down feel or not? The car went when I needed it to without exerting a lot of effort. Did not have to push much on the accelerator to get a down shift and the engine seemed to stay more or less in the power band so I was happy. Hate cars that you have to peddle a lot to get them to go...like most rental cars. Have never owned a turbo before so when I get a G70, having the turbo to help the engine will be a new experience for me.

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[Edmguy]

Have you actually driven those cars? I've driven an R8 (last generation, V8), McLaren 650S, and lot of other "regular" cars with manual modes and I can guarantee you they will not auto downshift when in the specific manual mode. In fact, no car with a full manual mode does, not even our X6 (non-M) SUV! The "kickdown" feature that others are referring to works in every car even before automatic transmissions with manual shifting came out, and it is intended to work in regular D to give you full power when merging, etc. This is absolutely a shortcoming of the G70, and I pointed it out to the dealer during the initial test drive.

I did and they both do. The R8 was a first generation V10 model. From what I remember, there was more resistance than with our car, but it worked the same way, you are in manual mode, floor it (up to that resistance) and it will hold the gear forever, but push past that point and it will go to the lowest possible gear.

Both drives were at Exotic Car Racing in Vegas and the guy driving with me told me to watch out for that.

 

[Cgo]

I've only commuted once in my 3.3 sport due to crappy weather, but I've kept it in sport mode and manually shifted to keep the RPMs between 2k and 4k for break in. The computer says 18mpg which isn't bad since I havent been using overdrive. My commute is 109 Mike's round trip.

 

[Throat Yogurt]

Besides, what's wrong with my complaint about the lack of a dedicated manual shift gate? I think it's a justifiable complaint, and when others act as if that's the norm, claiming Audis and Ferraris behave in the same manner, you can see how there's a drive to mislead people in order to hide the car's (few, and minute) flaws.

Sorry, but the G70 DOES have a manual shift gate (see below). If yours doesn't have one, it means you didn't get the correct model.

 

[Dai Uy Ted]

I don't see a shift gate in your photo...

 

[TOGuy242]

I don't see a shift gate in your photo...

View attachment 21121

Do any cars come with these any more? Haven’t seen one in years except for ‘classic’ cars ...

 

[Beefer]

^ does the R8 still have it?

Nevermind...last year of a manual R8 was 2018.

 

[Toddasaurus]

How about a shifting gate?




:B

 

[Throat Yogurt]

I don't see a shift gate in your photo...

View attachment 21121

It's in diagram form, on top of the round knob next to the emergency brake.

 

[Dai Uy Ted]

Ahhh, a shift pattern on the shifter knob, rather than a gate on the shifter, or "gated shifter"...a bit different. See Google Images' "shift gate".

 

[Dai Uy Ted]

"Manual shift gate" now means something else, and we've all seen them. My TBird has one. G80 features manual shifting via the shifter, which has no gate, or via the paddles. I haven't driven a G70.

manual shift gate, defined (from eclectic content)

I think that's what @GenericUsername is looking for in post #529.