Can the use of the sportshift damage the car in any way? I'm not sure I know how to use it yet, and might be using it improperly without knowing.

Can any damage be done? Or is it all computer controlled and programmed to avoid any damage?

 

It's all computer controlled. Go ahead and play with it, that's what it's for. Plus you can't downshift or upshift if your gonna over rev-it. Even if you forget to downshift coming to a stop, it'll do it for you.

 

And furthermore...I doubt I'll drive mine in anything other than SS. Typically you want to break a new car in by varying engine speeds. What better way to vary them than the sportshift.

 

Well, you can never damage the transmission with SS, but it could be a hazard if you are not careful. I have twice downshifted from third to first by mistake, when the speed is too high for it. Sometimes the car is just too quiet to tell what the speed you are at.

 

...according to the service guys at my dealer, you can't get into trouble with the SS as the rev limiter will not allow the engine to go over the red line. As has been pointed out you can even forget to downshift and it will go back down to a lower gear by itself when you come to a stop. I dont even think the rev limiter will allow you to go over the red line on the 6 speed either, thats what I also heard from a reliable source.

 

test

 

If it let you downshift from third to first the speed was not too high. That's what I like about it, it'll let you play to a point.

 

Well, not really all that high, I think the speed was around 30 and I dropped it to first while feeding it plenty of gas, it went in with no problem but then it hits the rev limiter right away.

 

Several people I know have mentioned that they thought SS was really fun for a while, then they all reverted to driving in auto mode exclusively.

 

I can understand that, those people bought their AT for a reason obviously.

 

I would prefer to buy a MT, but since my wife and I will share the car, we must get an AT (she finds MT cars too inconvenient to operate).

Anyway, the SS seems like it's a good compromise.

However, I've been thinking that the SS doesn't allow you to shift quite as smoothly as the MT (or even a standard AT) because it forces you to shift through each gear before you get to the top gear.

In other words, you can't shift from 2 to 5 without rowing through 3 and 4 also (unlike a MT). There are times when you might want to blast from 0 to 35mph as fast as possible, then relax and cruise at 40mph in 5th gear. (I guess if you want to do this, you just push the lever over to "D", though.)

 

I drove a sportstick Prelude for the last three years and I hardly used it. It is really nothing like a manual transmission. Although it will let you rev it higher than normal AT, theres no way to rev up the rpms and let out the clutch for those really quick launches. I guess you could do a nuetral drop, but I imagine that would tear up the tranny pretty fast.