I’m talking getting started in snow that has piled up to halfway the height of the tire.
Spinning the tires is almost always bad. You’re just compressing the snow/ice into a slick nightmare. When I talk about rocking I mean move forward until the tires slip, quickly shift, move in reverse till the tires slip, back into 1st, repeat.
That said - In heavy snow/ice I’ve tried 2nd gear, and it just simply doesn’t work (in my car). You really need to get momentum - I can get my car moving on dry asphalt in 2nd (or even 3rd, the few times I’ve made the mistake of thinking 3rd was 1st) but on an icy, slippery road - only 1st will do.
And yeah, I have traction control, but for getting the car going from a stop in icy conditions - it needs to be off.
Yeah, if you want quick acceleration in an automatic, say if you want to overtake someone, floor the accelerator and it’ll drop down a gear and shift at, or close to, the red line.
When I took driver training (in a manual), back in 1990, my instructor demonstrated that you can start a car in any gear, without using any throttle, by putting it in every gear, and gently letting up on the clutch, enough to get it rolling. He then got me to do it in 1st gear. I guess this teaches one to be gentle with the clutch, to eliminate jerky starts.
I’ll have to see if my Mazda 3 will be able to roll in 3 or 4 without stalling. I’m curious. As for the technique you describe, that’s how I generally teach people inexperienced with driving stick. I get them to get the car moving in first without using the throttle to get a sense of where the grabbing/release point is, and it also nips bad habits like throttling hard and aggressively slipping the clutch before they can start to form.
Got an auto-trans car? Next time you’re all alone at a red light, floor the accelerator when the light turns green: you’ll see the tach touch redline just as the transmission shifts into second (and third, and overdrive, if you care to get going that fast). Can’t do much better than that.
People who turn street cars into competition drag racers will refit their cars with (among other things) a couple of helpful features:
-a torque converter on the transmission with a stall RPM that’s maybe 1000-2000 RPM below the RPM at which the engine delivers peak torque, and
-a rev limiter that interrupts the spark at an RPM just below the torque converter’s stall RPM, until the driver releases a switch (at which point the original redline RPM limiter is restored to duty).
So when you’re a couple of seconds from launching down the track, you hold the button for the low-RPM rev limiter, and you flatfoot the throttle. The low-RPM rev limiter holds the engine at maybe 3500 RPM or so, just below the point where the torque converter starts delivering heavy torque. When the tree turns green, you release the switch, the engine starts delivering all its power, and now the rev limiter lets the engine spin up - and it only has to spin up a little bit before you start getting full torque delivery. Yahoooooooo…
The main reason to downshift gears with an automatic transmission is when going
down steep hills to get engine braking and thus save your brakes. I have D, 3, 2, and 1 on my car (2007 Buick Lucerne). I downshift to 3 (direct drive) when going
down a long steep hill (like the Merritt Pkwy in Connecticut) and doing over 65 mph. This keeps me from having to use the brake as much plus gives me better control of the car going around sharper curves. I will use 2 only if I am under 65 mph and going down an extremely steep hill. I do believe that my car, if I came to a complete stop with the shifter in 2, would shift all the way down to first gear. I never use 1 gear (can only shift into it if I am going slower than 25 mph), but would consider using it if I was on snow/ice and going down an extremely steep hill at low speed.
People who keep their automatic transmission in D all the time simply don’t know
how to drive. Truck drivers downshift their big rigs going down steep hills all the time to avoid undue strain on or completely losing their brakes. A driver with an automatic must do basically the same thing, except without a clutch and manual gears that a truck has.
And while I’m here, Fords and Mercs (Crown Vics and Grand Marq’s) that I’ve had would lock into 2nd if that was selected. So the vehicle would both start and stay in 2nd. Seems like my long gone 71 AMC Javelin did the same. So not all vehicles shift 1-2 if put into 2nd.
Interesting thread and demonstrates how fast technology is moving on. I drive an auto Ford in the UK and, like most modern atomatics (stick still rules here), it has a six speed “powershift” gearbox with twin clutches.
Most of the comments above refer to fluid transmissions. My car, like most today, does not have fluid, but the gear selection is done by a computer. I don’t have 1,2,D,N,R,P but D,N,R,P. I do, however, have a manual override, so I can force a downchange on a long downhill section. I also have a (rarely used) “Sport” mode, which delays upshifts to a higher RPM.
The trucks (44 tonne semis) that I used to drive had very similar gearboxes, only with 12 ratios instead of 6. For downhill stretches I also had an exhaust brake which was made more effective when the revs were raised by forcing a downshift - In these circumstances, the computer recognises what’s happening and doesn’t try to upshift until the throttle is applied again. After driving complex manual trucks, switching to auto required a complete re-think.
Sorry for a brief hijack – what is the right term for an automatic transmission that lets you manually select from all the forward gears (mine has six) rather then letting the system choose its own shift point? The manual says “manual transmission” which doesn’t seem right to me because there’s no manual clutch.
I live in Ca. we have a lot of mountains here with steep winding roads and long grades. I am always shocked at how many older drivers have never learned to use the gears. I seldom ever touch my brakes in the mountains, in most cases second gear works perfectly with no need for breaking. The only problem I have had a few ties is forgetting to take the car back out of second when I hit level ground and traveling too fast in second causing the transmission overheat light to come on. When this does happen I shift into high and slow down to about 65 mph. It takes about 10 min for the light to go back off.
Zombie thread revival: I just bought a used car with an automatic transmission with D, 3,2 and L. So it’s a 4 speed automatic. Now I understand, and use the advice of, all the previous comments about downhill driving and icy conditions, etc. However I have another contribution and possibly a question to pose at the same time.
When mpg specs are given for a specific model of car, you may see, as an example, the following: 24mpg city, 29mpg highway with automatic transmission. The next line will have the mpg for manual transmissions which will always be a few mpg higher.
I don’t know exactly why the above fact seems to always be the case, but… if I drive my 4-speed automatic as if it were a stick shift, will my mpg increase?
Older automatics with a ‘fluid flywheel’ waste power churning the fluid around. There is also a small weight penalty. A good driver with a stick will always beat an automatic, because they can anticipate what is ahead. The automatic can only react after the event.
Of course a propery set auto will always beat a badly driven stick, but autos are getting more sophisticated and will soon be hard to beat anywhere.
Almost certainly not. A well designed, properly functioning automatic transmission will shift more efficiently if left to it’s programming. As a matter of fact , even your statement about manuals always having a better mpg rating is no longer true. [As mentioned in this article,](As mentioned in this article,) automatics have improved to the point where they get the same, or in some cases, better mpg.
It’s not “always” the case, and hasn’t been for a while. it’s historically been the case since years ago the choice was between a 3-speed automatic without overdrive or a lock-up torque converter and a 4- or 5- speed manual with overdrive. the difference in fuel economy was significant.
once automatics reached forward-gear parity with manuals, the fuel economy advantage of manuals was minimal. And once automatics surpassed manuals in the number of forward gear ratios, manual transmissions had no advantage. Manuals are pretty much topped out at 7 speeds. GM and Ford have just launched a 10-speed auto.
I use my gears constantly in mountain or downgrades. I never like to use brakes to control my downhill speed. I shift as low as I need to go to avoid using my brakes. I have on occassion forgot to upshift when I was back to highway speeds causing the high temp light to come on for my transmission. Important to put back in drive when back to highway speeds.
I have an automatic right now for the first time in a God awful long time … so far I’ve never had the occasion to downshift when going downhill … but then I don’t accelerate between the hairpin curves … I figure a few seconds braking every minute or two doesn’t really overheat them … even in overdrive I slow down just idling the engine …
Uphill I try always to downshift … run up the engine to about 3500 rpm and I seem to have plenty of power while not lugging the engine …
… but then again the twisty steep mountain roads around here are far far more beautiful at 15 mph than at 40 mph … think US-199 in Northern California …
Right. I know how to drive a manual just fine. I even had one for many years. However, they are not superior in any way to modern automatic transmissions. My father has a Corvette Z-07 (the track ready version of the Z-06) and it is stupid fast. It is offered in both the automatic and manual transmission versions. Guess which one is faster even with professional drivers? It is the automatic because no human can shift through 8 gears as fast as a computer controlled transmission can. It gets better gas mileage than the manual version as well.
It is time for the idea that automatic transmissions are inferior to manual ones to die because it simply isn’t true anymore. It also isn’t true that manual transmissions offer more control. Most modern automatic transmissions offer a range of settings. Most people don’t ever use most of them but they are there. My Toyota Rav4 for example will let you downshift (I have used that on icy downhills), lock in 4 wheel drive (never used it) or turn off traction control (used that when I was stuck in a rut).
If someone doesn’t know what all those extra settings are for on their vehicle, I would suggest some self-taught remedial driver’s ed. Find a large parking lot or an unpopulated road and try them out at lower speeds. You won’t hurt anything as long as you don’t try to drop into 1st gear at 70mph. I do something similar at the start of every winter. I find a snowed in parking lot and practice skid and spin recovery. It is a lot of fun and may look to others like I am just goofing off but that isn’t the point. I need to know intuitively how my vehicle will react under unusual circumstances and that knowledge has served me well so far.
