2011 V50 Geartronic "Lazy"

Rilkean · Post by **Rilkean** » 27 Feb 2014, 17:47

I bought my 2011 V50 T5 a year ago with 40k on it. Ever since I've owned it the Geartronic mode of my automatic transmission has not been snappy with its upshifts. Down shifts are fine. Whenever I tap the shift lever back for a downshift, the transmission immediately complies. But upshifting is another matter. Every now and then when I tap the shift lever forward in geartronic mode the transmission will go ahead and upshift, but more often than not it will not respond at all and I'll have to tap it forward repeated times to get it to finally shift to a higher gear (2nd to 3rd, 3rd to 4th, etc.). Meanwhile the engine is winding out and I'll have to decelerate and coast while trying to get a shift to happen, or shift back into automatic mode and forget about shifting manually altogether.
I had a software update done on the car in the fall and that seemed to help for a time, but now its back to how it was. I hardly use geartronic mode because it's so lazily compliant as to be no fun.

What do others find with Geartronic mode shifting?

Post by **matthew1** » 27 Feb 2014, 19:45

Your 2011 and my dad's 1999 are anything but "apples-apples", but his S80 was so non-fun in manual mode I tried it and never used it again. It was balky. I believe it shares the same "Geartronic" name, but certainly the software and hardware are different by 2011.

If the manual upshifts were ok at some point, obviously something's wrong. Trans fluid level ok?

Rilkean · Post by **Rilkean** » 27 Feb 2014, 20:15

Re: trans fluid level. I should have mentioned that I renewed the transmission fluid this past fall at 55k and then had the dealership do a transmission adaptation reset. I was hoping this would help the geartronic shifting become more precise. But not really.

Post by **matthew1** » 27 Feb 2014, 20:23

Overfilling is as bad as underfilling. I don't know how tolerant V50s are to fluid level. You might want to check just to rule it out.

Check owner's manual, but it's probably a warm engine/level surface/while idling thing.

Post by **oragex** » 27 Feb 2014, 20:41

Does the transmission perform as expected in automatic mode?

Rilkean · Post by **Rilkean** » 27 Feb 2014, 20:50

Good idea. I'll check to make sure fluid level is at the level it ought to be since the refill. And, yes, the transmission performs flawlessly in automatic mode.

Post by **oragex** » 28 Feb 2014, 03:51

I guess it's a matter of programming or the up-shifting switch is sticky.