I'm no technical genius and there are folk here who have considerably more knowledge, but I thought i might see if I can help.

1. When we were playing with the D3s at selections we got to play in some pretty muddy sections, the idea being we would get stuck and then practice winching. I noticed a couple of times, right at the very end of movement before being stuck they stalled a couple of times.

I put this down to being so stuck even with the low torque of the auto gear box, the only option is to stall, thus preventing damage to the transmission. In an old TDi with a manual box when you reached this point, you knew you could go no further, so just depressed the clutch and got out to dig. To try any further risked burning clutches, or possible destroying diffs, gear boxes, or prop shafts.

Being up a steep hill trying to drive off presented the same challenge, a near 3 tonne vehice on a steep incline was too much for the transmissin so to prevent damage she stalled.

I don't see it as a problem, rather stall than break something. Next time on the descent though, start the engine, select reverse and the hill descent control, you will have a lot safer return trip. Freewheeling back is notoriously dangerous.

2. Your right about the suspension going to extended. I suspect as you reached the crest of the slope the ground came close to the chassis. Its called extended mode, it is fully automatic, and designed to help elevate the vehicle off possible obstacles or prevent grounding. It is possible to extend even higher manually after extended has been activated. The suspension adjustment light does blink, and if you look at the dash it should tell you its in extended. Like you say it shold return to normal by flicking the suspension control either way.

Hope this helps, I had a look at your pics too, she looks great. Did you put the privacy glass in the back? Or was it standard. She looks cool with the blacked out windows, really sets off the orange. I couldn't help thinking how neat it would be to fit a small hydralic arm to the lighting panel, and a switch in the cab, so they pop up automatically, very James Bond!!

Cheers

Rich

Never done super super mode in mine, but had it in extended mode twice - usually invoked when the system senses more than one wheel has no load and no progress is being made.

There are a number of extended modes, to do with stopping the car from lowering or raising if it in contact with anything and stopping it if you open a door.

You can invoke the extended mode you are looking for. To make it happen the vehicle needs to be grounded out with wheelspin as I understand it. So if you want to get to extended you lower the car purposly to ground it and get some wheel spin, that should make the first extended work. The other trick will not always work. sometimes there is just no more lift available once it has done the first lift.

The important thing however, once you get extended with the flashing off road hight light, sensible folks reverse off, stupid ones drive on.

And yes, re-set it as soon as possible. you will find the ride is rather on the firm side.

To re-visit the first post.

If you let an auto roll back it will indeed stall.

This can sometimes happen when the vehicle changes up.

And yes, good progressive acceleration is the way to go.

Best practice for slippery climbs, drive up in the highest practical gear, in other words engage the command shift side of the box and use 3rd or even force it up higher, depends on your risk assesment. Also a good plan to turn DSC off, use a combination of momentum and the available traction. And always remember a good safe failed hill proceedure.

This was going to be a quick answer. Never mind, hope it helps.

I should add that there is no real practical advantage to forcing the vehicle to go extended as the suspension is then so firm that very little articulation is available.

Treat it as a "get out of jail free card" so that you can reverse away from the problem and re asses the situation. If you use it to make progress you could end up VERY stuck.

If you want to test it it is easy:

Park on a firm ground (parking lot, driveway) Leave engine running.

Put it in Off-road Height

Put an axle stand or Jack under crossmember under the gearbox.

You can then or jack it up and it will go in extended mode or you can select normal height and then the D3 will try to lower and senses that it bottums out and will raise to extended mode.

I cannot get my 2005 manual into super extended mode. I tried severall times.

If have had very high stands after being recovered.

If you get stuck and dig in on a steep soft sand hill the D3 will go in extended mode. If you then get recovered backwards by pulling you D3 up you will get additional clearance.

End result was a smooth backward recovery by Craig! Thanks!!

Great photo Dave

Rich