Hi everyone,

 

My Dad currently has a Skoda Octavia VRS Diesel and has recently had a weird problem start. He tells me that when for example he is going downhill doing around 50-60mph and touches the brake pedal that the car will go from 6th gear and jump back into 3rd gear for some reason and if he touches the accelerator pedal after it will jump back to 6th gear.

 

Has anybody had this issue and if so what is the fix? He plans on taking to the garage but an experienced mechanic who is friend seems to think it might be a sensor or switch issue? Maybe brake switch or gearbox sensor?

 

It's a bit mystifying and have searched the net already but can't seem to find anything. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

What year is his car?

 

I ask because at some point after my car was built (2006) the programming of the DSG was changed, so that if you are going downhill and touch the brake the gearbox changes down. It then holds this gear until you apply the throttle......I suppose the idea is to provide engine braking. I don't know what year this was introduced, but I have observed this on a 2012 2.0 TDI CR DSG.

It's a 2010 model TDI DSG

In that case it's entirely possible that his car has a DSG gearbox with this newer programming. In which case it's normal. 

"touching" the brakes downhill should not cause it to down-shift.

U have to press it a good bit, in effort to slow down, to engage the engine braking by downshifting.

Ok booke23, thanks for that. :-)

Mine does this in D when going down an incline, particularly if I have dabbed the brakes; is blatantly an attempt by the gearbox electronics to add in some downhill engine breaking, most likely to take the pressure off of the brakes a bit.

My car is also a diesel, problem is due to its more restrictive rev range and that in truth it is a bit noiser than the TSi when it does choose to go into 3rd gear at 40mph or so it results in the car revving to about 3k RPM which is a bit buzzy and annoying, ive countered this most times by slipping it into manual and selecting 4th and making a bit more use of the brakes to keep it to speed without so much noise.

For info my car is an MY13 Jan 2013 car so is one of the last off the line.

It is providing engine braking as others have said but 6 to 3 at 60mph on a touch of the brakes seems a bit extreme unless it is a really steep hill.

 

When I had mine I regularly drove down a long hill (Pool Bank in West Yorks).  50mph dropping to 30.  As I braked to hold 50 it would change down a gear or 2 then as I braked again down to 30 it would drop another.  It would then hold that gear until the road levelled off or until I touched the throttle.  I used to watch it in utter amazement as it did exactly the right thing!!

Thanks lads, I shall reassure my old man further when I speak to him. He hasn't had the car that long, swapped it for petrol version as he has began doing more mileage so changing to a diesel made sense. I've only just recently become an owner of a Skoda Fabia VRS and I've enjoyed my ownership of the car so far :-)

Mine does the change down also but not from 6th to 3rd, depends on the length of time I press the brake on the downhill and it also seems to know if a very steep gradient so will go from 6th to 5th then 4th and if I have slowed speed down enough but still press on brake it will continue changing down appropriately.

What I now do is to anticipate this on familiar roads and use my flappy paddle to downshift manually one gear which prevents the auto downshift into sometimes unnecessarily low gears which cause high revving.

Mine does the change down also but not from 6th to 3rd, depends on the length of time I press the brake on the downhill and it also seems to know if a very steep gradient so will go from 6th to 5th then 4th and if I have slowed speed down enough but still press on brake it will continue changing down appropriately.

What I now do is to anticipate this on familiar roads and use my flappy paddle to downshift manually one gear which prevents the auto downshift into sometimes unnecessarily low gears which cause high revving.

As above, goes through the gears one at a time but from experience usually ends up in one gear lower than i would have selected myself.