Comfortmatic and Engine Braking
I’ve always very uncertain as to how to go about descending down long steep downhill stretches. When I leave the motorhome (we have a 2022 Benimar based on a Ducato chassis with the comfortmatic transmission) in auto the rev counter goes mad and I have to intervene by sitting on the brakes which is not very good. So would I be better at the start of the downhill stretch to flip it over into manual and ideally select a similar gear to that that the auto selected to go up the steep stretch and lift my foot and let engine braking take the motorhome down the steep bit. Maybe dipping the brake every now and again to stay in that gear.
Comments
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It’s what the annual function is for. Better to use that than to cook your brakes.
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Annual - annual? Flaming auto correct😤. It’s 'manual'.
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Just once a year then?😁😁
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🤪🤪🤪
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I have always liked the way the comfortmatic down selects to make use of the engine braking. It has always been good in the mountainous regions we visits in Europe. It saves cooking your brakes and if you think it has dropped down to much with a flick of the lever you can move the box up a gear. Just make sure you get the fluid changed regularly and the kiss point reset to prevent your joining the "comfortmatic failure club", which can be expensive to say the least.
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Good point. Our 2020 and 2021 Ducatos both had the TC auto box. I thought they were more than 6 speed but can’t be sure now.
However, it’s not unheard of for MH converters to have vans for quite a while before they get around to converting them and selling them on to dealers who, in turn, might have them on their forecourts for a long time before finally selling and registering them.
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The gearbox which followed the Comfortmatic was the same as used by Mercedes Benz so I’m surprised to hear it was troublesome. Certainly the two we had in Ducatos were fine as was the version used in our Vito. I understood Stellantis moved to using an in house produced box on cost grounds🤷🏻♂️
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