Hello all, Thanks for having a read.

I have a 2007 RDX tech. 140,000km. My wife drives it so I'm not sure if this is normal or not. I find that in 5th gear (auto) at 2000-2200rpm if I give gas even very slightly gas the RDX would rather engage the turbo than increase rpm. This would continue until the boost gauge is up 3/4 the way. If I give it a blip of gas the rpm will rise but of course the turbo will too. I've done a transmission flush and fill X 3 with DW1 and changed the air filter. Same issue.

Is this normal? I don't drive it enough to know?

Thanks

 

depends on your speed when your in 5th gear. If your going at the minimum speed required to shift into 5th gear, which I assume is around 45-50mph, and then give your car about 20% throttle; I presume that the turbo might spool before any significant RPM increase.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. It's spooling up with very slight gas added and continues to spool higher while giving very little gas. I think I'm gonna have to take it in.

 

Its normal for this car. Transmissions rely on pressure to know when to down and up shift. When giving throttle with no real load the turbo kicks in like a dumb puppy happy to see you came home making it unknown to the transmission that it needs to downshift for you cause if feels as though nothing has changed. You either have to give it more gas so the transmission wakes up or manually downshift in sport mode. That is my opinion anyway.

 

You must never drive your car at all. I think this is normal. For example, if I set the cruise control at 65mph on the freeway, just the amount of extra throttle required to 'climb' up over an long overpass will engage the turbo, sometimes almost to full boost.

In my opinion, this is purposely set by the factory into the mileage algorithm. An IC engine runs at best efficiency at low RPM, low throttle position, and high load. So instead of downshifting the trans, the algorithm spools up the turbo.

You can drive your car a bit more to verify consistent operation, but from your description, it sounds normal.

 

It would drive me crazy if my RDX downshifted every time I applied a little throttle in 5th gear. I like the variable turbo providing some extra HP and speed in 5th gear when I gently hit the gas pedal.

Sounds like you might need to do Hondata reflash? I can feel faster and harder acceleration with the extra HP/TQ at the same RPM range and I don’t have to downshift to a lower gear or press the gas pedal harder to get it.

 

Hmm, seems like a normal thing. I rarely the car so I didn't know it was normal to be that way.

Thanks for all the fast replies.