Is it okay to "shift" frequently?

[user 1485]

Hello eGolfers!

I frequently find myself "shifting" through the different levels of recuperation settings as I drive. Has anyone raised any concerns over doing this? I don't know if it would wear out things faster? My guess is not, since some vehicles like the Bolt allow you to adjust it on the fly...

 

[f1geek]

I also adjust regen based on the driving conditions. I have no concerns. What's going to wear out? The shift handle? I doubt it. This is the same shift handle that VW uses for their DSG equipped cars so I suspect it can take a beating for 10-15 years before you notice any issues. Enjoy!

 

[user 1485]

Haha, I was thinking more about the hardware actually driving the car!

 

[Kosta]

I too increase regen when approaching a stop sign or traffic light , then reduce it back to level 1 when driving again .. tap tap ..... tap tap .... keeps me engaged ...

 

[JoulesThief]

I'll let you in on a little secret... I own a 2013 Touareg TDI Sport. The shifter took a crap on me. Will not tell the ECU that the car is engaged in "park", when it actually is in "park". Since the ECU is not getting the message from the broken contact in the park position in the shifter, the ECU won't disengage the keyfob in the dash board. Touareg has been garaged almost every day of it's life, it's silver in color. Can't get keyfob out of dash, can't secure the car, can't lock it, fully vulnerable to smash and grab in any external parking situation. Really bad design, VW, obviously no failure analyisis engineering performed, very, very poorly thought out.

$150 "diagnosis" fee to tell me what I already knew was broken. VW P/N 7p1713025 D Shift linkage. About $770. And 7 hours of labor estimate, or $1800 plus sales tax. My Touareg has 41k Miles on it, I am the original owner. There are ZERO of them in Stock. VW ships them on a slow boat from Germany, then it has to go through customs inspection.

I don't shift my Touareg hardly at all, I put it in drive and let the transmission shift software make the decisions. Most of my trips are high mileage trips in my TDI's. I don't put the car excessively in "Park" doing small trips, yet the "park" sensor has failed. This is a new model shifter, starting in 2013, that's "modular" One portion of it fails, the whole unit fails, the whole unit gets changed out.... Very, very, very expensive.

About $1800 to R&R, and it's going on 3 weeks now before the part finally showed up from Germany. VW is doing demand pull type inventory in the USA, they don't stock much in inventory. A lot of German made Golf and Tiguans, and Jetta's are having a recall on these shifters. Full blown recall, for failure. And I would worry, with it being a made in Germany e-Golf, when parts would become available in inventory in the USA, and for how long your car will be down while that part goes through customs, and your car is sittting in the dealership, non operative.

So, yes, I would worry about wearing that shifter out, slapping it side to side for more braking effect. The whole shifting linkage
box is completely plastic.

 

[user 1485]

I'm not concerned about the actual shifter itself, just to be clear. Rather I am thinking about the drive motor/recuperation/whatever it's called that actually drives and does the recuperation. Not sure if it's hard on that to be changing frequently.

 

[f1geek]

So you are referring to the electric motor and associated electronics. Electric motors are typically very durable, so if VW did a good job with the motor, I don't think you need to worry about that. I suspect the power electronics are made by Bosch and I would imagine Bosch is good at making inverters, etc. Just so you know, every time you brake, you are engaging the same recuperation you get if put the car in a mode that recuperates without pressing the brake pedal, so I don't think you avoid wear on the motor and electronics even if you use a variety of recuperation modes. If you look under the hood, you will see there is a cooling system for the electric motor and power electronics, so that's a good sign that the car keeps those items from getting too hot. The battery, unfortunately, doesn't get any help from that cooling system. I'm not going to worry about these items braking, but there's really no way to know except to drive the car.

 

[Kosta]

just had my 1 year service on my eGolf, $120 rotate tires check some fluids plug in and check systems .. 1 hr labour ..... investigate low speed grind from rear - recommended fix, new rotors on rear - pitted from lack of use 7000 kilometres ... vehicle gets used almost every day in town ... regen slows so effectively hardly use the brakes ... also suggested to get up to highway speed and a few heavy applications of the brakes to clean them up ? perhaps a different alloy for the rotors to stop rusting would help VW ..... :lol:

 

[user 1485]

just had my 1 year service on my eGolf, $120 rotate tires check some fluids plug in and check systems .. 1 hr labour ..... investigate low speed grind from rear - recommended fix, new rotors on rear - pitted from lack of use 7000 kilometres ... vehicle gets used almost every day in town ... regen slows so effectively hardly use the brakes ... also suggested to get up to highway speed and a few heavy applications of the brakes to clean them up ? perhaps a different alloy for the rotors to stop rusting would help VW ..... :lol:

Not too bad! My brakes do "grind" a little as well after being parked, I wonder if we only hear it because there's no engine/exhaust noise? Regardless, it does seem like you could easily put in higher quality rotors if you really wanted to.

 

[JoulesThief]

just had my 1 year service on my eGolf, $120 rotate tires check some fluids plug in and check systems .. 1 hr labour ..... investigate low speed grind from rear - recommended fix, new rotors on rear - pitted from lack of use 7000 kilometres ... vehicle gets used almost every day in town ... regen slows so effectively hardly use the brakes ... also suggested to get up to highway speed and a few heavy applications of the brakes to clean them up ? perhaps a different alloy for the rotors to stop rusting would help VW ..... :lol:

Not too bad! My brakes do "grind" a little as well after being parked, I wonder if we only hear it because there's no engine/exhaust noise? Regardless, it does seem like you could easily put in higher quality rotors if you really wanted to.

Doesn't hurt to put your car in Neutral and step on the brakes hard to slow down from a 50 to 60 mph run every now and then, say 1x a week to clean up the rotors.
,

 

[msvphoto]

just had my 1 year service on my eGolf, $120 rotate tires check some fluids plug in and check systems .. 1 hr labour ..... investigate low speed grind from rear - recommended fix, new rotors on rear - pitted from lack of use 7000 kilometres ... vehicle gets used almost every day in town ... regen slows so effectively hardly use the brakes ... also suggested to get up to highway speed and a few heavy applications of the brakes to clean them up ? perhaps a different alloy for the rotors to stop rusting would help VW ..... :lol:

Carbon fiber? Ceramic? Unfortunately those are the only common alternatives and both are super-costly. Not the typical rotor material VW uses except possibly on the Pikes Peak I.D. R, and on some of their other brands like Porsche, Bugatti, maybe Bentley, and some Audis.

For the savings JoulesThief's suggestion of an occasional hard braking "cleaning" is probably the best bet. Ours are real squeakers when cold, but not grinding. Having brake rotors that go bad from lack of use is an interesting twist we'll have to get used to.

 

[RonDawg]

I'll let you in on a little secret... I own a 2013 Touareg TDI Sport. The shifter took a crap on me. Will not tell the ECU that the car is engaged in "park", when it actually is in "park". Since the ECU is not getting the message from the broken contact in the park position in the shifter, the ECU won't disengage the keyfob in the dash board. Touareg has been garaged almost every day of it's life, it's silver in color. Can't get keyfob out of dash, can't secure the car, can't lock it, fully vulnerable to smash and grab in any external parking situation. Really bad design, VW, obviously no failure analyisis engineering performed, very, very poorly thought out.

$150 "diagnosis" fee to tell me what I already knew was broken. VW P/N 7p1713025 D Shift linkage. About $770. And 7 hours of labor estimate, or $1800 plus sales tax. My Touareg has 41k Miles on it, I am the original owner. There are ZERO of them in Stock. VW ships them on a slow boat from Germany, then it has to go through customs inspection.

I don't shift my Touareg hardly at all, I put it in drive and let the transmission shift software make the decisions. Most of my trips are high mileage trips in my TDI's. I don't put the car excessively in "Park" doing small trips, yet the "park" sensor has failed. This is a new model shifter, starting in 2013, that's "modular" One portion of it fails, the whole unit fails, the whole unit gets changed out.... Very, very, very expensive.

About $1800 to R&R, and it's going on 3 weeks now before the part finally showed up from Germany. VW is doing demand pull type inventory in the USA, they don't stock much in inventory. A lot of German made Golf and Tiguans, and Jetta's are having a recall on these shifters. Full blown recall, for failure. And I would worry, with it being a made in Germany e-Golf, when parts would become available in inventory in the USA, and for how long your car will be down while that part goes through customs, and your car is sittting in the dealership, non operative.

One thing I learned from Audi ownership: with out-of-warranty VAG products, NEVER go to the dealership. Find yourself a good independent mechanic that specializes in Volkswagen Group. Most won't charge you a "diagnosis fee" if you let them fix the problem (It's to prevent DIY'ers from having them diagnose the problem, then refuse the work and buy and install the part themselves) and their labor rates are usually much less. The $1800 in labor might be $1300-1500 at an independent shop. They might even be able to get the part itself for a bit less (when those "in the trade" buy parts they usually do so at a discount so they can make money off the parts too).

If you're near/willing to drive to Pasadena, I can give you the name of a very good independent shop. The owner is a former Rusnak technician.

 

[JoulesThief]

I'll let you in on a little secret... I own a 2013 Touareg TDI Sport. The shifter took a crap on me. Will not tell the ECU that the car is engaged in "park", when it actually is in "park". Since the ECU is not getting the message from the broken contact in the park position in the shifter, the ECU won't disengage the keyfob in the dash board. Touareg has been garaged almost every day of it's life, it's silver in color. Can't get keyfob out of dash, can't secure the car, can't lock it, fully vulnerable to smash and grab in any external parking situation. Really bad design, VW, obviously no failure analyisis engineering performed, very, very poorly thought out.

$150 "diagnosis" fee to tell me what I already knew was broken. VW P/N 7p1713025 D Shift linkage. About $770. And 7 hours of labor estimate, or $1800 plus sales tax. My Touareg has 41k Miles on it, I am the original owner. There are ZERO of them in Stock. VW ships them on a slow boat from Germany, then it has to go through customs inspection.

I don't shift my Touareg hardly at all, I put it in drive and let the transmission shift software make the decisions. Most of my trips are high mileage trips in my TDI's. I don't put the car excessively in "Park" doing small trips, yet the "park" sensor has failed. This is a new model shifter, starting in 2013, that's "modular" One portion of it fails, the whole unit fails, the whole unit gets changed out.... Very, very, very expensive.

About $1800 to R&R, and it's going on 3 weeks now before the part finally showed up from Germany. VW is doing demand pull type inventory in the USA, they don't stock much in inventory. A lot of German made Golf and Tiguans, and Jetta's are having a recall on these shifters. Full blown recall, for failure. And I would worry, with it being a made in Germany e-Golf, when parts would become available in inventory in the USA, and for how long your car will be down while that part goes through customs, and your car is sittting in the dealership, non operative.

One thing I learned from Audi ownership: with out-of-warranty VAG products, NEVER go to the dealership. Find yourself a good independent mechanic that specializes in Volkswagen Group. Most won't charge you a "diagnosis fee" if you let them fix the problem (It's to prevent DIY'ers from having them diagnose the problem, then refuse the work and buy and install the part themselves) and their labor rates are usually much less. The $1800 in labor might be $1300-1500 at an independent shop. They might even be able to get the part itself for a bit less (when those "in the trade" buy parts they usually do so at a discount so they can make money off the parts too).

If you're near/willing to drive to Pasadena, I can give you the name of a very good independent shop. The owner is a former Rusnak technician.

Very near Pasadena... 20 ish miles. Please, if you would, PM me. Yes I own a Ross-tech cable, usb hex, have no problems running a scan to see what the problem is.