[oldflyer]

2016 Passion, DCT. I am getting my new-used 453 ready to tow. I am following the tow setup procedure as written...
Engine running, parking brake set, step on and hold brake pedal, shift lever to manual shift lane, hold back (downshift position) for at least 30 seconds.
Transmission is supposed to go to gear 6 and should show "6" on cluster.
It doesn't. Stays in 1.
Tried multiple times, no joy.
I'm needing to tow this in a week. Am I missing something. Does the dealer need to program or set something?
Help.

 

[oldflyer]

SOLVED!
OK, so the procedure was just slightly uncertain. It won't work when the engine is running, and you can't shift from Park into the manual lane if the key is one click off. So, I shifted into the manual lane, then clicked key one off, held downshift, and got gear 6 indicated within 10 seconds.
Car towed nicely. Felt just like my former 451.

I did notice a couple of things...
-Former owner put a knife cut-off switch on the battery neg. pole. It looks like one of the small wires is still connected. When I cut battery off, the instrument cluster was still active and I got the "remove key" beeps. Other electricals did seem to be off.
-When I restored power and turned ignition on, I got a couple of warning messages. One was like no TPMS sensors and TPMS warning light was on. But everything seemed to clear after driving it a bit.

Would like to know if all this seems normal.

 

[oldflyer]

Next time I tow car, I want to check to see if miles accumulate, and if I can lock doors with other key. Probably not on both counts.

 

[Richnjohn]

Yes, as you discovered the engine cannot be running. I don't think there is supposed to be any current running through the system when you are towing for fear the ABS or other computerized controls might kick in. I have not found a way to lock the doors. Oddly, the key will unlock them but not lock them. I believe that once the battery is fully disconnected that miles do not accumulate on the odometer.

 

[oldflyer]

Update on lessons learned. Yes, the battery has to be completely disconnected to tow. Then there will be no error codes showing up like I was getting. I towed the car for three straight days without disconnecting the car or reconnecting (I thought) the battery. When I did reconnect and try to start the car, the battery was dead. After a jump start, I had some ominous error codes something about no TPMS sensors or hill hold feature, and a couple of other warnings I don't recall. Anyway, the car seemed to run OK, so I drove it to charge the battery, and restarted it a couple more times and everything seemed to clear up with no more errors.

Problem was due to previous owner's installation. There is a knife cut-off switch on the neg. battery pole, and the main ground cables were on the auxiliary disconnected pole as expected. But there were two small non-stock wires still connected to the battery neg. pole that never got disconnected. I traced them to an add-on 12v socket and another add-on power plug, probably for his supplemental brake system. Somehow, the ground for those was not really isolated and continued to power the computer which is why I still saw the cluster display even with the cut-off switch in disconnect mode. I mounted all the ground wires to the aux. switch pole and have no more problems. I've towed the Passion for 2600 miles now, and the procedure to tow is as familiar and easy as for my old 451. Happy camper.

 

[Richnjohn]

I noticed that sometimes the gas gauge freaks out after towing but it eventually fixes itself.