wstr75

Rented an Avalon for four days in Florida recently and when I got back to my RL at the airport I found myself subconsciously reacting to "drag" when I let off the gas. Everybody knows Toyota has maxed-out the economy settings in their transmissions (see the discussions on the Lexus and Toyota forums). What I was reacting to was the RL staying in gear and not free-wheeling or moving up to fifth gear (coasting) when in town traffic situations.

My Silverado truck has a normal/tow setting button for the transmission setting. When driving for economy, it would be good to have an econ setting where the RL tranny goes into minimized rolling resistance (like not in gear when coasting). The performance setting would be today's present RL tranny arrangement.

Driving back from airport last night (this trip the rental company put me into a cop car - Mercury Marquis), I reset the gas mileage display and did my economy driving style (I'm an expert because our other car is a 400h). I'm convinced if we had an economy button setting that allowed the RL to freewheel more, the gas mileage would be better. Now freewheeling is fine when you are in economy mindset mode but when you want to be in "I like driving my RL hard" mode, free-wheeling mode would be very much in the way of having fun.

What would be involved with Acura designing a transmission that gives us those choices?

Trackruner228

iTrader: (1)

Hm that would be nice but I doubt Acura will do it. After there issues with the 99-03 TLs I doubt they are going to mess around too much with trannys. I think they figure as long as its working and they arent failing that thats good enough for them.

NavyDoc333

I kinda feel the opposite about the tranny. I prefer that it stay in a lower gear for quicker throttle response. I've noticed around town at about 45mph my RL shifts into 5th...and when I press lightly on the gas I get a little drone before it picks up or I have to press a little harder to get it to downshift. When I drive in manual mode, I almost always leave it in 4th unless I'm getting up between 55-60.... then there's now lag. If the RPM's are at 1500 or below the engine seems to bog a bit

VOdoc

I like the idea of selectable tranny profiles. My '97 Volvo automatic had that--though I must admit I kept it in "Sport" about 99.9% of the time. Of course, gas was $1.00 a gallon in the late '90s.

One nice feature of the RL tranny is the grade logic/descent control feature. For most of my life I drove manuals because I didn't like that out-of-control feeling on the downhill. The RL uses gentle engine braking to save wear and tear on the Brembos and give the driver more control. So if an economy mode were introduced, I'd want the free-wheeling to be for uphill slopes and level ground only.

wstr75

Yes, I like the grade logic/descent mode. Our neighborhood is on a big hill and I put it into 2nd gear and don't touch the brakes at any point coming down through the neighborhood. I pop the tranny up into 3rd in the flatter spots and back into 2nd in the steeper sloped sections. The SH-AWD display shows the rear wheels as being the primary drive set as it goes down the hill . . . . the ideal wheels to be providing primary traction in that situation. Acura engineers think of everything, don't they? I'll say it again - the 2nd generation RL is a sweet, sweet car.

Mike_TX

I'm sorta with NavyDoc - I feel the RL's tranny is already biased toward economy, as well as a luxurious feel. At the same time, I think it also has enough sporting nature to be lively when you want it to be.

So I suppose I'm saying it is about as good a compromise as I could ask for.

Nevertheless, a Sport/Economy switch isn't that big a challenge for a tranny mfr. Trouble is, most people just put it one place or the other and leave it there.

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VOdoc

True! Yet the manufacturer gets to calculate gas mileage based on the "Economy" setting and 0-60 time based on the "Sport" setting. Best of both worlds for marketing, and gives owners a choice as opposed to a compromise.

Although our compromise works very well as Mike points out, I do sort of like the idea of selectable tranny modes for the RL.

gavine

From my understanding, Honda's PGM-FI cuts-off the supply of gas to the engine when coasting and then returns the supply of fuel again once the RPM's hit a certain low RPM range. Try this...next time you're coasting in manual mode, notice that you'll feel a drag (this is with no fuel to the engine) and then you'll start to feel like your coasting with no drag once the fuel supply is turned on again.

This obviously saves fuel because there's no need to supply fuel to an engine that is turning from the car's momentum.