Petrie1997

hey guys,
on my latest distance trip, i was using sport shift most of the way. i found that with 4 people in my car and A/C running, i liked driving in 4th gear instead of 5th. does that waste a whole lot more gas? it just seemed that in 5th it was sort of sluggish. anyone else do this?
peter.

hzm82

Why don't you leave it in auto? There is no reason for you to keep it in 4th gear on the highway, If you need to pass some1 you can just down shift. Seeing as the 4 gear 99TL gets 27mpg and 5th gear 00TL+ gets 29mpg. You're losing 2 mpg according to EPA testing.

medic

yup, when cruising, you want to be at the highest gear possible and use your cruise control

with 4 people and the AC blasting, any car will feel weaker since there's more load

Ken1997TL

Not entirely true about the 4th gear getting you into 27 mpg range. The 1999 TL of course had a 4 speed transmission, but different ratios. With a 5 speed, there are TWO overdrives, one is more "aggressive" than the other. Instead of 29 mpg or so, you'll probably end up with 25 mpg.

There is nothing "wrong" with being in 4th

this is me

i'm on D5 always on the freeway.
Much more quiet and save gas as well

agean

yeah i wouldn't recommend sport shift on the freeway. whenever i get into sport shift, my mpg drops like crazy (gotta love that vtec sound)

once you're on the highway and not in the mood to drive aggresively, just pop it into d5 and put on the cruise control. amazing how much more mpg you'll get

EmuMessenger

My 99 never got more than 25MPG and my 03 TLS easily does 30MPG on the highway.

fla-tls

Leave it in D5 on the highway. Acura/Honda paid a lot of engineers a bunch of money to design that powertrain. It will get you the best mileage and won't hurt the car. Remember, it's not a 4 cylinder - it's got some decent low end power and doesn't need to rev that high while cruising.

If you need passing power, just punch it and the computer will oblige you very quickly with a nice downshift.

fla-tls

I'd like to add something to this equation - the final drive ratio. In a rear-driver you could compare it to the rear end gear ratio.

Overdrive simply means that gear with a ratio of less than 1:1. By itself, it's not an important classification without taking into account final drive. I'm not sure what the final drive ratio is on a 99, but the 5 speed has a final drive of 4.428. That's a gear ratio that's more appropriate for a drag car.

No wonder 5th is 0.47:1.... (a smaller ratio than I've seen on just about any car!)

It's a magnificent piece of machinery - until it breaks down .

Petrie1997

how are you guys getting in the 30mpg range??? even with iridium plugs, exhausts, and comptech filter, i'm in the 20 mpg range. that's driving very non-aggressively!

peter.