Have you ever used these things behind your steering wheel before?
If you haven't they enable you to change gear manually
but when most modern Mercedes-Benz are automatic....why would you ever want to?
Hey guys and welcome to my channel! My name is Nick O'Leary and today we're looking at your
paddle shifters! We'll be looking at what they are, where they came from and how you yourself
can make use of them day to day & on top of this as well if you yourself own a Mercedes
I might share a little hidden tip and trick on those paddle shifters at the end of the video!
But first and foremost let's have a look at what they are and kind of where they came from.
Paddle Shifters also known as flappy paddles allow you quite simply to change gear manually.
Travel back to the late 1980s and you'll find that one of the first cars that featured these
was in fact a Ferrari, shortly after this in the 1990s many car racing manufacturers
started implementing this technology to allow drivers to shift through the gears with ease,
they were placed right behind the steering wheel because of naturally that's where
your hands are when driving so you can easily grab them at a moment's notice.
Now a common misconception is that they're just for racing in high performance cars
while yes they do have their place here they do have a place for day-to-day use as well!
So because of this trend and a shift towards automatics with paddles like these here
manual gearboxes are just a thing of the past now most modern cars have a dual clutch transmission,
multi-clutch transmission or even a thing called an AMG Speedshift like in this car here.
Over simplifying it for all three variations and
of course some more as well they quite simply have the next gear selected at all times.
So whether you're striving for that fuel efficiency it can change gear really
quickly and smoothly giving you that kind of Mercedes-Benz experience you'd come to expect
however in some high-performance cars like this one it can change gear rapidly giving
you that power and kick and putting that power down to the floor when you need it the most.
And I guess this neatly comes on to why do they exist? Why do you need them?
Well quite simply you don't need them
but it does give you the option to change game manually if you want to!
So for example if you're taking this car around a track or driving it in a very sporty way,
you can change gear manually and control when the car changes gear if you want to do it manually.
Now on the other end of the spectrum if it's snowy or icy
you can control the gearbox manually and actually choose when the car changes gear
or another case in point as well if you're going down a very steep hill
you can drop it down a gear to use engine braking instead of wearing your brakes out.
So then guys a real world example for you to use yourself so if you look really really
closely at the steering wheel you'll notice that the paddles have either a minus symbol
or a plus symbol quite simply tapping the left one the minus one
will go down a gear and tapping the plus one will go up a gear.
Now you don't actually necessarily need to touch anything else to put
it into a manual mode it will automatically do that for you.
So I'm actually cruising at the moment at about 29/30 mph & I've just entered 40mph.
So yes I plant part my right foot down to the floor it will drop down to lowest gear
and accelerate forward but another way of doing this is by using the paddles.
So if you tap the left paddle if you look really closely and I'm gonna cut to my camera here
see it says D6 at the moment, if I tap it once, that now says M5 and M means manual.
So now I'm in the manual mode and it is only a temporary manual mode so
I'll explain how to come out of that in a minute.
If i tap it again it'll go to M4 one more time it'll go to M3
so you can see the revs just shooting up there and obviously matching that engine speed.
If I tap the right one it'll go to M4 right one again M5.
Now of course if you want to accelerate quicker of course you'll need a lower gear
so if I tap the left one and again, I can now accelerate and really get up to that
speed limit for this road which of course is 40mph.
Now i'm still in that manual mode I can leave it and if i recall it's about 8 to 10 seconds or so
and basically the car will go back into that automatic mode...there we go it's just done that!
So is only a temporary manual mode
however there is another thing if you for example if I drop down the gear so i'm currently in M4
if I hold the right one that will go back to automatic straight away so you don't have to
wait for it to go back to automatic you can just manually do it straight away if you want to.
So then guys that hidden tip and trick that i promised so as we've just covered on the road
the paddles of course change the gears this one goes down a gear this one goes up a gear,
that's nice and easy!
Now when you do use these the car kind of goes into like a temporary manual mode which is fine
but of course if you leave it it will go back to automatic a few seconds later so what happens if
you want to drive in like a full manual mode all the time where you always use the paddles?
Well this can vary from model to model so you would just have to kind of have a look
some models likeGLC's, GLE's some SUV's & AMG's do have a dedicated M button down here so when
you press this so for example it's this button here when you press this it will put the gearbox
into a manual mode all the time meaning it won't go back to automatic until you turn it off now.
Not all models have that M button so for example an A-Class doesn't have that so what you can do
is use Dynamic the DYNAMIC SELECT select and go to a thing called the Individual mode.
So DYNAMIC SELECT is the one where you have your Comfort, Sport & Eco modes.
Go into Individual then go to Settings and in here you can actually customise your own mode
and make it a manual mode among a few other settings and that sort of thing.
So now when I'm driving along you've got Comfort, Sport,
Sport + or Eco depending on the model you have but that individual mode is now your
personal customised manual mode meaning you have to change gears on here.
Of course that is only if you want to use the paddle shifters but there's
one workaround just in case you don't have that M button down in the middle.
And there we go guys that concludes this week's
video on how to use your paddle shifters in your Mercedes-Benz.
Now tell me guys what do you use them for? Let me know in the section down below in
the comments section and likewise do you have any suggestions for future videos?
Let me know down below and I might just consider one of your suggestions!
Well guys as always huge shout out to Sandown Mercedes-Benz
as they help provide access to all the cars you see in the videos so a huge shout out to them!
But guys thank you so much for watching until next week we'll see you then!