Wondering if these cars learn driving habits? I've been going easy on the vehicle during the break in period. I have now crossed the 600 mile mark but oddly I feel it is slower than the loaner vehicles I have driven. Wondering if the ecu tunes down to allow for better mpg as it realizes the vehicle is constantly being driven lightly? Could also be im just getting use to the feel of the car. FYI I always use 93 oct gas.

 

What mode are you driving in and what mode were the loaners in?

 

Sport mode on all vehicles. Sport + is crazy aggressive. I don’t know it just felt like the other cars pulled harder.

 

I have not read anything so far about the car learning from user behavior for the RDX.

 

Most modern cars have adaptive transmissions that learn your driving style and adapt over time. This isn't new technology, but I don't know if the RDX 20-speed is adaptive or not. I'd be surprised if it's not.

 

^^^^ This

But it's 10-speed. Don't give them any ideas! ​​​​​​​

 

​​​​​​​Fat fingers...or small phone.

 

As mentioned before most vehicles do learn some from your driving. This is most true in the transmission area. This is old tech from the 1990's that has been updated over the years as controllers have evolved. But, don't think it learns and then locks in. Fact is the learning is on-going. Mostly what the controller looks at is shift times with RPM changes between input and output speeds. What this does is allows the computer to adjust the oil pump volume and or pressure to insure the shifts happen at the right speed. Some vehicles have several programs depending on how aggressively you are driving the car. Most people don't even notice this as the change is done slowly. For example, before I retired I was a technical person for a couple of "large" car manufactures. It was very common for me to have a brand new vehicle shipped directly to me for training purposes. I would then need to drive the vehicles out of town for remote training. During the first few hundred miles (and these were fresh off the assembly line and trucked to me) I could really feel the difference in the vehicle as it "learned" how to best shift to maximize performance. The adapting of the shifting is one of those great technical achievements as not only does it make the car perform better it also greatly increases the life of the transmission as it reduces the slipping of the clutches increasing their lives. It also compensates for wear and changes in driver habits.

As for the engine performance there is some learning, but its hard for the average person to actually notice it. The engine controller is programed at the factory for a "average" car. With the feed-back closed loop fuel systems used for the past thirty years the vehicle monitors the exhaust oxygen levels and performance of the catalytic converts, the fuel tank purge system, and other variables and makes minor corrections to the "fuel trim". This can actually be read on the data stream from the computer of most good scan tools. There is both "short term" and "Long term" memories. A skilled tech can read these and learn about h ow the vehicles systems are operating. A car that is running properly should have fuel trims that are less than plus or minus 10%. If (long term) fuel trims are outside those values the vehicle has a problem. Note that the vehicle has many "cell" in its look up tables that correspond to various load and speed conditions. On most vehicles you only are reading the current cell therefore if you really want to get the bigger picture of what all is happening you need to drive the car under all possible conditions while watch the cells.

There is much more to this and I could (and have) wright a book on it but its enough to know that there are adjustments being made constantly. So, yes, the car does learn from your driving but its constant so if you drive differently it will learn that fairly quickly. For most people you may never feel it unless you get the car with about no miles on it OR there is a repair or replacement part installed and the system has to re-learn operation with a part that might produce different readings. For example the car learned setting based on a faulty (shifted) sensor and you replaced the defective part. As you worked through the different trim cells the computers would need to recalculate values and make adjustments.

That ends today lesson... :-)

 

My car knows I dont drive like a granny hence my horrible gas mileage.

 

Each car has a methodology of erasing the learned behavior - something like pressing the gas pedal a set number of times with the ignition in the accessory position. Does anyone know the procedure for the RDX?

You could always ask at the dealer the next time you are there to reset it for you.

 

Actually there are methods of "unlearning" and there are names for this. On one car brand for example you use your factory scan tool and do what is called "Clear Adapts", which basically sets the car back to "factory defaults". We use this when we repair cars which have had certainly driveability issues. The vehicle will have learned while using bad readings and we will need to clear out that old data so the car can then do a quick learn with the new parts. Of course you can just drive the car and in time it will relearn what is best, but that can take some time. A few decades back it was easier to force the vehicle to do this. Things like just disconnecting the battery for a time or pulling a certain fuse (to the keep alive memory) would clear it. Also, doing a certain combination of tasks would force it into clear mode. Sadly such days are fading away. New computers and stricter emission lows have changed a lot of stuff. Car makers didn't want people to be able to go playing with their computers (There are legal reasons for this). You really need to check a factory service manual to get this information.