I was wondering if it's bad to throw the car in 5th gear if i'm going like around 45-50mph... just cruising... cuz i noticed that under normal driving, it doesn't go into 5th until you hit around 55-50mph.. but if i'm on a street and throw it in 5th in Sportshift, the rpm will be lowered to around 1200RPM, which saves gas... is this bad for the car?

I mean, you can throw the car in neutral (if you have a stick) and the car will still cruise ... but is it bad to engage it in a gear higher than it's supposed to?

 

I don't think it's bad at all!

 

I was wondering the same thing. Since there are some long stretches of 45MPH zones around my city, I just get the speed up to 50MPH and shift into 5th gear. I believe it does save some gas.

 

It saves gas as long as you are not accelerating when you "short-shift" - it is not just revs, but also the amount of throttle and the time it takes to acclerate to speed that count.

SAE engineering studies have shown that moderately brisk accleration up to cruising speed actually gives better mpg than the old style "egg foot" did with carbs. It is a atter of the efficiency of modern EFI cars.

 

I run into the same situation all the time. One of the only times I use SS is to make the transmission upshift to 5th gear before the 50MPH threshold. Note that it will not upshift if you're going too slow -- it knows to prevent the engine from lugging.