I'm hoping I can get a little survey of everyone experience before I take the car in to the dealer.

On my aging TL at 50mph the car is in 5th Gear (final gear). In fact the car will shift to 5th if I'm cruising between 35-40MPH and drop to 1.5K RPM.

On the RDX I've noticed that rpm will sit at our around 2K RPM between 40MPH and 50MPH if I'm cruising between those speeds. I usually have to tap the paddle shifter to kick into 6th gear to drop the rpm back to 1.5K and save me a little fuel.

At 50mph I usually have to push it up 51-53mph in order to get the 6th gear change. Where I live in Canada the general speed limit around regional roads is 80km/h or about 50mph. So it bothers me that the vehicle will sit at 2K rpm between 45-50mph as this is where I typically drive the most.

Looking for anyone's on this.

Thanks

 

I've got almost 5000 miles on my RDX, and I've got to tell you that I don't think I ever looked at the tach.

IIRC, both 5th and 6th are "overdrive" ratios (i.e. <1:1). Unless you feel that there is something wrong and the car isn't shifting correctly, in most circumstances I'd let the transmission decide which gear it wants to be in. I would think that being in 5th will give the car a bit more grunt quickly if needed. And I would also guess that the difference in MPG between 5th and 6th is relatively insignificant.

Just my .

 

I see the opposite. Our RDX seems to shift into 6th gear earlier than I expected (maybe around 40 MPH). The way I can tell is that whenever I hit the down shift paddle, it always goes into 5th gear, so it must have already been in 6th gear. I like the car a lot, but it seems to bog down a bit at times, which I attribute to its shifting into 6th earlier than I would have shifted manually.

The way you describe your problem, it sounds almost like you are in S mode rather than in D mode.

Gregg

 

how you drive the car determines how it shifts. also shifts are delayed when the car is cold to force engine warmup quicker..

I noticed that when I had the RDX for a week, it would shift fairly quickly into the next gear as I was not getting into the throttle.

forcing the car to shift early really isn't a good idea....

 

Shrike - my car does the exact same thing. The speed limit in my city is 50MPH, so I'm constantly using the paddle shifter to shift to 6th. It did the same thing with my parent's 2005 RL, so I'm not bothered by it at all. It's a little more conservative when shifting up so that you'll still have power to accelerate if needed.

 

Shrike, I have an 05 TL with over 90K and it likes to shift to 5th early, but is very quick to drop to 4th when you need a little more push. Since I usually get 30MPG on long highway drives I have no complaints. I also have a 13 RDX and find it does like to linger before upshifting, with only 4K on it I can't tell if that's good or bad.

I noticed when coasting to a stoplight - and there's a lot of them here in Brooklyn - the TL will coast easily, save a little gas, while the RDX will keep the engine engaged and downshift gently - gets annoying while it decides it wants to help you brake.

Final point - different thread - what happens if the RDX remote gets fried or wet or something? Are you SOL??? Or like some other cars, is there a secret place to put the key in?

Thanks,
Tony

 

there is a key to open the car in the remote. as for starting you would be sol if placing the remote near the start button did not work