intermittent READY problem

[kenward]

I've been chasing an intermittent problem that I first thought was related to unlocking after charging, but that was wrong.

Problem occurs intermittently on power up, fully charged, while charging, or when charger not connected. Door closed, foot on brake, press the power button, put on seat belt, ready to attempt to drive away. When the problem occurs, shifting to R or D, while all indicators suggest the car IS in R or D, if I take my foot off the brake, I find the car is physically in N, no matter what the LEDs say.

Scary the first few times it happened, like parked facing downhill, put it in R, find myself rolling towards the next car instead of going backwards. Ditto for parked facing uphill, put it in D, find myself rolling backwards.

Solution is to put it back in P, hit the power button again and all is well. Today I was a little more observant, realized that when the car powers up, if the word READY (in green) is not being displayed in the lower left corner of the center display, the transmission only knows P and N, despite what the gear selector and dashboard displays say.

Hitting the power button the second time doesn't cause a power down as I expected, rather it seems to reset/resume the power up process, and the word READY is now shown, the car behaves as desired.

Searched the forums but didn't find any other mentions of my problem. Also, I can't find a sequence of events that will make it reproducible for the shop. If it's in the Service bay and won't exhibit the problem, then they really can't fix it.

Any suggestions?

Thanks for reading!

 

[miimura]

Make sure you press hard on the brake pedal before you press the Start button. That is my only suggestion. You may still have the problem anyway, but this should reduce its occurrence.

People are used to lightly pressing the brake, enough to activate the brake lights, to deactivate the shift interlock on ICE vehicles and feel the e-Golf should be the same. In my experience, it requires a firm press to make sure that it powers all the way up to Ready with a single press on the Start button.

 

[mfennell]

I can't figure it out either. Hitting the button, then stabbing the pedal a bunch of times works for me and has become my habit. When I just hold the pedal it doesn't always work as you guys have found.

Without anything to back it up, my pet theory is that the ECU gets a brake-on signal when the brake is activated and sometimes that signal arrives before the ECU is fully booted. Tapping the pedal a few times creates multiple signals.

 

[JoulesThief]

What does the owners manual say to do?

 

[mfennell]

When all else fails, RTFM I guess. Pg 218.

It says to hold the start button down UNTIL the Ready message occurs in the cluster.

BTW, you can switch the ignition on but not the motor by pressing the button without pressing the brake or clutch. That's good info - I often press the clutch randomly in my e-golf.

 

[mfennell]

FWIW, I'm 4 for 4 holding the start button until Ready shows up. It takes 4-5 seconds I'd guess, which seems like a bit long to hold the button down. I'll probably return to my stab-the-pedal-many-times approach.

 

[JoulesThief]

I put my seat belt on, step firmly on the brake pedal, and hold the start button for about 1 second, and I get "READY" every single time. YMMV, this is what has worked for me, I've owned many Audi VW products since Audi had sudden acceleration problems in 1985-1986, and Audi/VW engineered a step on the brake hard solution to shift, or start, every single time.

Step on the brake hard, continue to hold it down, then press the start button, you should feel the brake pedal sink underneath your foot as "Ready" state is reached.

 

[kenward]

I've been following the "step hard and hold" advice offered for the brake pedal. Before pressing ON, the pedal does feel like it sinks. Wait for READY has worked every time this week where normally I would have experienced the problem at least once every day.

Thank you to all the people who viewed/replied to my query!