Just wanted to throw a question to all the fellow AUTOMATIC owners out there....

How often do you use the O/D deactivate button on the shifter?......

For 'in city' type driving where its a lot of stop and go, do you always run with the O/D disengaged?....

 

I do. I never drive with it engaged unless its in the mountains.

The button is in a kinda odd place. I have bumped it a few times by accident and turned it on.

 

I use it all the time. Works great when you want to hold a steady speed with no brakes down a hill or just want to slow up for traffic.

Shifting manually up & down is also fun. Ford did a nice job with the shifter.

 

I do not use OD on any of my vehicles unless I have a nonstop run of 10 miles or more. I still get 15.5 mpg in my 2004 FX4 5.4 with less tranny wear. Cars have been doing without od for many years. Once you engine is running and warm you have very little wear so I do not consider engine wear as big of a problem as tranny wear.

 

From my understanding all the button does is revamp the throttle. As well as it holds in the lower gears for longer leading to a faster acceleration.

At least that’s what it does in sports mode on most German cars. I’m pretty sure they just gave it a different name, but someone corrects me if I’m wrong. My cars manual so it really does matter but I am interested if Fords “overdrive� is any different from other car manufactures “sports mode�.

 

From what I remember yes... it did change shift points, and locked out 4rth gear.(on my 02) or 5th in the new stang

I use it in city driving

 

Never do.

 

I ONLY use the OD when I'm on the Freeway...... Disengaged on all my in-town driving 50 mph and under.

 

Ok, now you've all confused me. According to the owners manual, the car is always in OD unless you deactivate it by pushing the button on the side of the "T" on the shifter handle. Is that not correct? If it is, I used to turn it on and off -- off when in town driving, and leave it on in OD when highway driving. But when I had the car into the dealership, the mechanic said there really wasn't any need to do that and I actually would get better gas mileage leaving the OD engaged.

And in response to "I do. I never drive with it engaged unless its in the mountains", I was always told that you NEVER drive a vehicle in OD going up and down a lot of steep hills (or mountains).

Am I wrong??

 

It is really just your 5th gear, deactivate it, you are driving a 4 speed auto. Your fuel economy improvement will be slight in city driving, it drops me from ~2k rpm @ 40mph to ~1200 rpm.

I rarely disengage it, no real reason to unless your transmission is constantly shifting between 4th and 5th.

I only discovered this feature about a week ago, messed with it for a couple days and have since just forgotten about it. Kinda useless for me.

 

to my understanding all OD does is give you the 5th gear, so it will give you better gas milage... so why dont you guys use it? I ordered a manual but I would love to understand why you would drive in 4th gear all the time if you had 5th avalible

 

I usually have the OD on all the time, except when I need it off in traffic or decide to "play manumatic" and shift the thing myself.

As far as why someone wouldn't leave it on all the time, I dunno. They're made to use them. It's gotta be either a fear of hurting the engine lugging it about, doesn't like the shift when more power is needed, or maybe they likes wearing out their engine faster so it blows up sooner so they can put a Cobra motor out of a wrecked Cobra, or a bad donkey supercharged blueprinted engine in it...

/even does the phantom clutch pedal thing in manumatic mode sometimes...

 

interesting.... OD puts more tear on auto?? i didnt know that. i thought it hurt auto tranny's. my 00 V6 had 2 tranny swaps. i drove with it on all the time. ive never heard that. maybe thats why i trashed the tranny.

 

I haven't found the OD setting to be really useful. I nearly always keep it on.


What would have been nice is some shift paddles on the steering wheel

 

Agreed.

The main purpose for the O/D disable function is to help when pulling a trailer up & down hills with your 3 litre Taurus.

It is somewhat pointless on a V8 Mustang, but Ford's design standards require all O/D transmissions to have the disable function, so there it is. Does no harm.

 

I guess mines always on.......
I accidentally turned it off once(oops didn't know it was in the T), and the orange light saying OD OFF bugged me. Same reason I always kept that PITA traction control on when I drove the olds.
Doesn't bother me either way.

 

Well I've been messing with it the past few days and I can see using the O/D for long range driving, highway driving, or just if you are laid-back cruising....

But if you are on a town road and hit maybe 45/50 mph, the car eventually gets you into 5th.... then say you need to get on it (for maneuvering, passing, or just showing some Camaro you have some horse under the hood), and you hit the pedal, because of the computer you get that second or two of lag time as the car figures out you need to accelerate. If I am running with the o/d off, and I need to get on it, the power is right there, much more readily available.

 

I stand corrected... You are right. I am confusing off & on. I always drive with it on and would turn it off if I were driving in the mountains...Would that be correct?

Maybe I should just leave that button alone.

 

Crap- thats why it hesitates when I am playing what for. Learn something every day!

 

Thanks for that explanation Dave...I understand how it works a little better now too after reading your post.