No prob - I've been figuring this all out myself....

From what guys like Swingle have done, I know the SCT tune removes alot if not all of that hesitation.

But for the time being, I've been playing around with this new auto tranny and seeing how cool it is. Here's something else - say getting off the highway at speed you downshift (to '3rd' on the shifter) to add to deceleration - works great. Well after rereading the car's manual, I discovered that the auto tranny is so 'smart', that if you are traveling too fast and downshift, the car calculates how fast you are going and drops you into the next lowest gear, so as NOT to hurt itself, no matter what NUMBER you click it to on the shifter.

So if you dropped it down to 2nd, the car would drop you to third FIRST, and then eventually drop you to second when appropriate. So it kind of eliminates the possibility of downshifting too far as you might do if your brain checked out for a moment driving a manual and you dropped into one gear too low.

Pretty darn cool. B)

 

hmmmm...that feature must have been made for people like me. This is definantly the "smartest" Mustang I have ever owned.

 

I noticed something curious.......

I was going up the interstate, and dropped OD off as I was merging.....Going 85(I know I know) with no OD it was running 3,500 RPMS when I put OD back on it dropped back to 2,500.

Its a heckova lotta fun to drive no matter what.

 

The best way years ago to ruin an auto trans was to over rev shifting the gears manually like in raceing. That has always been the main facter. The best way today is to let the computer decide. If you must play do not over rev, must likely the rev limiter will stop you from doing that in todays auto trans and in turn just bog you down. If you do over rev, the oil in trans over heats (burns, looses the red color to ever darkening shades of brown) and no longer cools and lubes the parts correctly. If you think you may have done that check the color and smell (burnt) of trans oil and change asap. You should not ever need to disengage the overdrive unless towing a trailer or steep declines where manually downshifting uses the engine to assist brakeing on a steep downgrade. For a better detailed explanation read your owners manual.

 

The manual section on disengaging the o/d leads off saying 'city traffic'......

I would think that short hops driving from light to light causing 'excessive shifting from o/d to other gears' as the manual says qualifies....

???

 

I'll chime in with this input for everyone....IF you do a gear switch like I have, you will REALLY appreciate the 5th gear...There's no way I would ever turn it off at this point as the 4.10's cause it to turn some insane rpm's.....I turn like 2900rpm at 80mph in 5th gear...I could only imagine would it would be like in 4th...probably like 4 grand! Can't drive at those rpm's for long highway trips and expect the engine or transmission to last very long....definitely glad they made it a 5 speed auto....happy cruising everyone!

John