I think it's very important to have the shift console lights working,
since it's not that hard to be going alone nicely ..say at 55ish and
accidently still be in second gear.

If it's a waterboxer engine ..those, especially the 1.9,  can sound and
feel about the same whether at 2,400 or 4,200 rpm.
Twice I have found myself in 2nd at cruise speed this way,
so ....visual on the shifter position is important.

I even like a red LED 'floor area mood light' in that area of the cockpit.

It's true..you can do a slap shift from D down to 2nd without looking or
pushing in the button. Very clever. Many people don't know about that
feature , it's in the owner's manual.

And...on the shift back up from 2 to D ....you have to be careful to not
put it in to neutral, there's no built-in stop for that shift.

I never put mine in D and just drive.
I manually shift between 2 and D a lot.  I like to control when it
shifts. I never use the kick-down feature.

Scott

On 7/15/2013 5:49 PM, David Beierl wrote:
> At 08:34 PM 7/15/2013, Stuart MacMillan wrote:
>> Remember, they are on when the ignition is on.  Not cheap, but
>> neither are
>> the ones from the dealer, and with all the downshifting on hills
>> required I
>> need the lights for night driving.
>
> You haven't noticed perhaps that you can shift from D to 2 and back
> very conveniently without looking?  VW very kindly allow you to do
> this without depressing the lock button, so there's no chance of
> overshifting into low.  Not saying you don't want lights there** but
> I don't actually look at them much.
>
> **given that the lights there are wired in series so they run at
> half-voltage, the incandescents ought to last almost as long as LEDs...
>
> Cheers,
> d
>