How do you drive an auto 'properly'

[Paul_C]

Hi Everyone,

And in adition to moving the gear selector out of P with your foot on the brake, most (if not all) autos won't start in D or R.

Many American automatics with column selectors are also interlocked to the key: You can't move out of Park until the key is inserted and turned to unlock the steering, and you can't return the key to the lock position unless the transmission is in Park.

With regard to staying in Drive while stopped, it comes down to how long. When just stopping at a red light normally I leave the tranmission in Drive. If it looks like being an extended stop, I'll shift to Neutral.

Never had any problems with overheating using that approach -- That's always been American transmissions; I've never driven a European automatic.

 

[AdamW]

As I have already said, I have only driven autos twice, and both of those times were in the incline-free flatlands of Surrey.

But all this talk of San Francisco is making me wonder: what are autos like for hill-starts? Both on slight hills and on steep hills? Thinking this through in my head, if you are on a steep hill with a small-engined auto, in D, lift your foot off the brake (no throttle), you will roll backwards and possibly stall (torque convertor tries to compensate, places too great a load on the idling engine). Is this true, or is there some magical property of autos that stops them rolling backwards, even on steep hills?

 

[AdamW]

For anyone who is a certified ******.

Seriously, why not just use the same laws on licencing that we have here? If you passed your test in a golf-cart, drive a golf-cart! Presumably the only people who drive with a proper gearbox in the US are truckers and sportscar drivers, and they would have no qualms about taking the test with a manual car...

 

[chainsaw_masochist]

As I have already said, I have only driven autos twice, and both of those times were in the incline-free flatlands of Surrey.

But all this talk of San Francisco is making me wonder: what are autos like for hill-starts? Both on slight hills and on steep hills? Thinking this through in my head, if you are on a steep hill with a small-engined auto, in D, lift your foot off the brake (no throttle), you will roll backwards and possibly stall (torque convertor tries to compensate, places too great a load on the idling engine). Is this true, or is there some magical property of autos that stops them rolling backwards, even on steep hills?

Exactly the same actually, but because cars and engines tend to be larger the point at which you would roll backwards is perhaps rather less. That said, I did see evidence of a lot of stalling on the hills of Frisco. To go back to your earlier point, you can compensate by the "two pedals, two feet" approach ie holding the vehicle on the brake but adding a bit of assistance from the throttle and thus reducing the chance of stalling.

 

[chainsaw_masochist]

For anyone who is a certified ******.

Seriously, why not just use the same laws on licencing that we have here? If you passed your test in a golf-cart, drive a golf-cart! Presumably the only people who drive with a proper gearbox in the US are truckers and sportscar drivers, and they would have no qualms about taking the test with a manual car...

Though autos are the staple in the US there are probably more manual transmissions around now than say ten or twenty years ago. I think this has been influenced by the desire for importing vehicles from overseas, especially from Japan.

That demo in the M5 is amazing. Mind you, this is from the country that stamps on its microwave pets should not be placed inside this item.

 

[AdamW]

The only video I watched off the site was an "aggressive launch" in an M5.

To me the guy didn't appear to be doing anything worthy of a video, just upshifting quickly, which is what anyone who joins very busy very fast motorways from short sliproads does all the time.

Perhaps for the intended audience of the website it seems more impressive, because they have been brought up with autos. Perhaps to someone who has never been in a manual car, this is the equivalent of seeing a rally driver belt around country lanes to a manual driver?

Perhaps someone should start a website "www.drivinganauto.co.uk". It could contain advice such as "Starting off: release the brake and apply the throttle", "Changing up: apply more throttle" etc.

 

[Paul_C]

I've never driven a European automatic.

Allow me to correct myself....

I did drive a Volvo automatic for a while. I should have remembered before, because it had a weird gate arrangement on the selector (floor-mounted).

You had to press the release button to shift from D to N, but could go from D to 2 without pressing it. If I recall correctly, you could also shift from R to P without pressing it. Very strange. Do any other European automatics have a non-standard gate like this?

 

[AdamW]

Do any other European automatics have a non-standard gate like this?

If I recall on the Sierra auto you could go from D to 3 (was a 4-speed) without pressing the release button. But I never actually reversed it, so can't say about that one!

I suppose the reason is, you don't want to be able to move it into D accidentally (perhaps getting out of the car having left it in N without the handbrake?) but moving from D to 3 doesn't require this. In fact, knocking it down to 3 whilst you are the passenger is REALLY good fun!

I remember the driver of the Sierra getting into trouble with her dad: he looked at it, thought "why is the back-end squatting?"... he went and had a look and found the engine running, gear selector in D with the handbrake on and her standing about 40 feet from the car!

 

[chambsesf]

All of the european auto's I have driven have shared the following characteristics:

Standard gate has been - P R N D 3 2 1

You cannot shift into or out of park without pressing the button - inadvisable if the car is moving.

You cannot shift into Reverse without pressing the button, but you can go from Reverse to Neutral without pressing the button (presumably because selecting reverse whilst moving forwards is bad, but selecting neutral will not do any harm).

You can shift between Neutral and Drive in either direction without pressing the button.

You cannot go from Drive to 3 (or 3 to 2 or 2 to 1) without pressing the button (i.e. downshifts) but you can go from 1 to 2 (and 2 to 3 and 3 to D) without pressing the button (i.e. upshifts) - presumably to avoid inadvertantly over-revving the engine).

 

[Paul_C]

I suppose the reason is, you don't want to be able to move it into D accidentally (perhaps getting out of the car having left it in N without the handbrake?)

As far as I remember, you could shift from N to D without using the release on the Volvo, as you can on every other automatic transmission I've ever used. But why would they require the release button to be pressed to shift from Drive to Neutral?

he went and had a look and found the engine running, gear selector in D with the handbrake on and her standing about 40 feet from the car!

I hope the brake was good!

All of the european auto's I have driven have shared the following characteristics:

Those characteristics are exactly the same as I've been used to on every American automatic I've owned. In fact on column selectors (where the release is by pulling the lever toward the wheel), it's normal for the gate to be arranged with two step levels.

To shift from N to R, for example, you only have to pull it toward you slightly, whereas to shift from R to P you need to pull all the way. Ditto with a small pull to go from D to 2, a full pull to shift down to 1.

 

[GRC]

You may find your left leg and arm being fairly redundant.

I find the left arm & hand surprisingly useful for steering the car, when used in conjunction with the right ...... and the left leg has to tap along with whatever's on the CD player, natch.......

Regards, Graham

 

[GRC]

Someone said;

"I really miss old LJK. Anyone know where he hangs out these days?"

He writes for one of the Hi Fi Magazines, I think it's HiFi World.

Regards, Graham

 

[Paul_C]

You may find your left leg and arm being fairly redundant.

If you drive an older car at night you still need your left leg for dimming the headlights!

On many American cars you also need it at the end of the journey for applying the parking brake.

 

[AdamW]

If you drive an older car at night you still need your left leg for dimming the headlights!

Are you serious?! Was this because they only had one set of bulbs, instead of one set for mainbeam one for dipped? Thus some kind of clunky mechanical arrangement that required foot-force to shift?

When I was learning to drive I was told "when I was your age we didn't have this fancy synchromesh. Power-steering? That's not proper driving! Power-assisted brakes are for wimps" and so on. And just a few years later I have wondered about the point of doing emergency stops with ABS-equipped cars. So, I am wondering if people of previous generations had to put up with the same. Perhaps "When I was your age we didn't have these fancy windscreens... standardised pedal arrangements? What's the fun in that?"

Or possibly "The Otto Cycle? Ackermann angles? Pneumatic tyres? You don't know you're born!"

 

[Paul_C]

Are you serious?! Was this because they only had one set of bulbs, instead of one set for mainbeam one for dipped? Thus some kind of clunky mechanical arrangement that required foot-force to shift?

I'm not quite sure if you're serious about me being serious, , but I was referring to a floor-mounted switch, not a mechanical arrangement (hey, maybe some very early "horseless carriages" had such an arrangement, I don't know).

Anyway the floor-mounted switch (push for high beam, push again for low beam) was standard for many years. I'm not sure when the last British car changed to a column switch instead, but thinking about it I would guess that most had changed by about 1970. Many American cars retained the floor-mounted switch much later: My 1979 Chrysler had one.