I have encountered many times with high rpm engine revving when slowing down, speeding up, or both in a quick reaction due to the engagement of engine brake. I had to let off the gas to avoid high rpm revving and let the gear changes properly before I can step on the gas again.

Is there any way we can avoid engine brake? or am I not doing something right?

As other members have mentioned using brakes is cheaper than using tranny to brake leading wears and damages to our lovely tranny. I find it annoying with engine brake grade logic feature for the automatic transmission vehicles.

Here is a scenerio, if I was driving down the hill then decided to let it roll by itself, then through a sharp curve, I slightly applied the brake, and immediatey the engine brake engaged, down shifted, then would not upshift to continue going down hill; speeding up would cause high rpm revving, then I had to slow down the car to bring the rpm down to match its current speed, then apply the gas to speed up again.

 

one way to avoid it is using the sport shift, thats what i do when i dont want the grade logic to downshift.

 

Or put it in D4 when driving in hilly areas- that keeps it out of overdrive
Works good in traffic to leave in D4 as well

 

^^^
Yup, I noticed much smoother up/down shifting in D4 mode while in the city, regardless of hills or not. Unless I know I will be driving over 40-45mph for a good distance, I'll keep it in D4..As soon as I hit the highway, I'm in D5 or if driving long boulevards with no lights/stop signs/traffic I'll be in D5 also. Seems to work great!

 

Great. Thanks guys.

I was about to ask what would be the max easy speed to stay in D4; otherwise it should be in D5.

 

Well if you are reving high there is nothing you can do about it other than shift to a higher gear to drop RPM. If you are using SS and let off at higher rpm what are you expecting it to do, its no different than a manual. If you are in auto it wont do that

 

In my case, it is all auto mode, and as one of my examples above, once engine brake engaged, speeding up will cause high rev and the gear will not upshift.

There is no other way out except to slow down for the engine brake to quit at a proper speed, then apply the gas again to speed up normal. From my experience, I believe the grade logic is a safety feature that works in a combinations of speed, up and down hill level position of the car. Safety is always number 1, so I can't complain much.

If you do a lot of quick brake and speed up instantly, the car handles poorly; the tranny itself does not feel smooth and confused on how to handle the gear shifting properly.

I tried to use D4 yesterday, and that will not work for me since my driving routes are 45 or higher, and above 40mph the tranny should go into 5th gear automatically bringing the rpm down to 1.6 or so. While in D4, driving at 45 or 50mph the rpm is around 2, and it feels sluggish. On a long drive, sometimes I like to speed up then let go the gas and let it roll, and if the engine brake kicks in, then the car is being slow down unexpectedly.

 

I always leave mine in D4! oops, it's a 99 lol