Computer downshifting..

S

solekeeper

Member
Hey guys, for those of you who drive in Manual mode...
Do you guys let the cpu downshift for you, for instance when your coming to a stop light?


Does that prematurely wear down anything?
I know that if you drop from 4th to 1st will obviously be no good.. but i'm just speaking in general.
 
I downshift myself, everytime, all the time. That's how I stop usually, minimal brake usage. I don't see why downshifting into high rpm's is any worse than accelerating into high rpm's
 
solekeeper said:
I'm talking about just completely shifting down from 4th w/o slowing speed... just continuous downshifting.
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Yes, I do that alot. You can't go directly from 4th to 1st, but if you downshift to 2nd, it shouldn't be too long until you can go ahead and drop it into 1st.
 
When you hear your engine revving when you downshift... and your ride slows w/o the brakes, is that hurting anything? When you feel that pulll.. from downshifting
 
wouldn't that put more wear on your transmission?
I think it doesn't hurt it but I would assume that wearing down your brakes would be better than wearing down the transmission.
 
The computer will not let you downshift when it senses the rpm is too high for that gear. Its a safety measure you cannot override.
 
the torque loads of engine braking are not going to be as much as accelerating, so there would be no excess wear on the tranny, it sees more stress on full throttle acceleration, your not hurting anything....


if you could downshift to 1st at like 90mph then yeah, you'd wind up over revving the engine or even locking up wheels, but the computer will not let you downshift if the resulting rpm's would be over redline, so you can try as hard as you want & you won't damage anything, keep hitting downshift repeatedly even from over 130+ mph & she'll just downshift to the next gear when it is safe to do so & no sooner, not much to worry about, you owe it to yourself to beat her a little every once in a while:.smile:
 
alright just had to clarify, because sometimes when I downshift I feel the car pull back.. so that's wearing the brakes.. And not the tranny.
Good!
 
solekeeper said:
alright just had to clarify, because sometimes when I downshift I feel the car pull back.. so that's wearing the brakes.. And not the tranny.
Good!
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It slows down because you are in a lower gear, it's not the brakes. I can come to a stop at a light almost without using the brakes. It's even easier in my dad's M35, and the G35 loaners we get. Brakes aren't covered under warranty, but the tranny is. I'd rather use the tranny. Plus, turbo backed up what I said in that it's no worse than just accelerating, and he pointed out that it is in fact not as bad as accelerating.
 
i thought the pull back feeling your describing is basically engine braking? Great to use when you save your brakes in certain conditions
 
yeah, it's engine braking. the pulling back feeling is the engine inactivity, the lower gear causes the engine to rev higher as it is trying to resist the foward momentum, the resistance slows you down, this resistance is not excesively stressful as long as it's not going to push the rpm's way higher than redline which ours can't do. if you decide to mash the gas on a downshift you also will put the engine at higher revs same way, but for more power for acceleration, only difference is instead of engine inactivity luging the car down, engine will be active & cause acceleration till it reaches redline again, where even that is protected by the rev limiter...
 
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