Post edited 21:21 – June 20, 2011 by Team
To auto-reprogram the SU1 gearbox
When the Vel Satis is stationary, the brake depressed and the engine on:
Shift from N to D then from D to N
Repeat the above shift pattern five times and make sure they is a pause of five seconds between each repeat of the pattern
Shift from N to , then from R to N
As before, repeat the above shift pattern five times and make sure they is a pause of five seconds between each repeat of the pattern
When you are driving the Vel Satis with the gearbox in Drive:
Release the brake pedal allowing the Vel Satis to roll forward through a single road-wheel rotation, and do not touch the accelerator pedal.
Press the brake pedal, come to a stop and remain stationary in the Vel Satis for thirty seconds.
The above process should be followed five times in succession.
During Low speed Driving
Select the tiptronic manual option by sliding the shifter
Now shift up to second gear from first
Gently remove your foot from the accelerator pedal and shift back into to first gear using the manual shift
The above process should be followed five times in succession.
General Automatic Driving
With a laptop equipped with the Renault CLIP diagnostics software attached to your Vel Satis and in listening mode, accelerate up through the gears from 1st through to 5th.
Now take your foot off the accelerator pedal and lightly apply the brakes until your Vel Satis comes to a stop.
Take great care when performing any/all of the above procedures, which must be done on level ground. The oil temperature of the gearbox needs to be 60 degrees or higher. Such procedures are advised by Renault when your SU1 gearbox has been rebuilt or the ECU has been replaced, but sometimes the procedures are recommended to owners whose Vel Satis seems to be selecting gears poorly.
If your gearbox is playing up then this might help improve things. Thankfully mine is OK (apart from the usual drive thump, when D is selected). I am sure that the SU1 box responds to careful but not tentative driving – the changes are better if you are on the throttle rather than hovvering over it, and you can teach it to change nice and early in traffic after a while. One other thing, if you are in 5th and it is struggling but you don't want to plant your foot, I find that knocking the selector over to manual does the trick as the box automatically drops to 4th (mine does anyway!) and that increases engine revs and torque nicely – the gearing is so tall the car can feel like it is struggling a bit on a motorway incline at 70mph in top.
Regards, dpress