Now I’ve driven quite a few Volvos,with the idle shift gearbox on it,and until today when a friend asked me this question about his new Volvo he’s getting next week,it was something that I had never considered before,so…
Can you block change on one of these gearboxes,IN MANUAL
I know when driving in auto,in E mode,it will block change as and when the road conditions allow,and when I’ve driven in manual mode,and pressed the thumb paddle,it seems to go up 1 gear at a time.
I think the Renault OptiDrive is the same box. With mine the gear change is a stalk on the steering collum and I can change two at a time in manual mode
With I-shift you have to ease off the power to bring the manual shift into effect. So for block changes simply select the gear you want by multiple button presses then let it change. Job done.
As a side note, IIRC the Renault box is AS-Tronic in sheeps clothing.
IIRC there are some little black arrows on the display that point out how many gears are available to go up or down (up = pointing up down = pointing down) depending on the engine speed and the road speed. A maximum of 3 gears might be available if the conditions are right. Just click the + when going up or the - when going down - for the number of gears you want to change. Will try it out tomorrow and let you know if its different.
Stops you from block changing to an inappropriate gear for the conditions.
Why would you want to block change using the manual override? I thought the software is able to choose the right gear for the right conditions using the least amount of fuel. Indeed i know that the manual override function (and kickdown) can be disabled altogether.
