6 — VEHICLE PERFORMANCE ADJUSTMENT
pg. 35
1212 & 1212P Manual - Sep 2019
Step 8: Fine-tuning the vehicle’s response smoothness
Three additional parameters—Gear Soften, Soft Start, and Tremor Suppression—are available for
softening and smoothing vehicle response. In most cases, these functions can be used to provide
smooth vehicle operation while still maintaining a high degree of responsiveness.
Gear Soften and Soft Start are in the Speed menu; Tremor Suppression is in the Throttle menu.
Gear Soften and Soft Start
These two parameters can be set from 0–100%, with 100% providing a great deal of softening and
0% eliminating the function. They have by far the most noticeable effect on older, worn transaxles.
a. Make sure Gear Soften and Soft Start are set to 0%.
b. While driving at both high and low speeds, release the throttle to neutral and then reapply
it before coming to a complete stop. Notice how the transaxle gears bump as you reapply the
throttle.
c. Change the Gear Soften setting from 0% to 100% and repeat the same exercise. Notice how the
slop transition is softened, at the expense of a small bit of nonlinearity in the acceleration rate.
d. Adjust Gear Soften until you find a setting you like, noting that you probably won’t notice much
of a difference if you’re using a brand new, tight transaxle. Some users prefer a softened feel,
while others prefer this parameter set to zero because they want complete linearity in response.
In setting this parameter, you also may want to take into consideration that softened slack take-
up is easier on the transaxle gears and may extend the transaxle operating life.
e. Soft Start is the same as Gear Soften, except it applies to accelerations from zero speed. Note that
you’ll feel a transaxle bump only if the gears are meshed in the opposite direction when torque is
applied, so you may need to nudge the vehicle backwards against the brake when experimenting
with this parameter. We recommend relatively small values for the Soft Start parameter (typically
< 40%) to avoid excessive delay from a stop. Having separate parameters for the soft start and gear
soften functions allows you to set the Soft Start parameter lower than the Gear Soften parameter.
Setting the two parameters the same in effect collapses them into a single parameter.
