I have an AT, but so used to stick that when i used sportshift, i tend to engine brake. now, i have the great idea to engine break in AT between D and L.

someone talk me out of this!

 

oops....i made this in the wrong forum

haha

 

I'd say it's not a good idea to engine brake. I say this because brake pads are much cheaper than an engine or transmission. There is probably no reason to do this on a manual either unless you are on the track and you're setting up for the next corner, but that where I good heel toe would come in to get a good rev match.

On normal daily driving there is no reason to engine brake.

 

I engine brake all the time on my manual and this doesn't cause any sort of damage. You can do the same with your automatic without any damage. But most people with AT don't bother.

Regards

 

I have a 6mt and have been driving stick for 6 years now, I still have no clue what you guys mean by engine brake. Can someone please fill me in???

 

I'm not saying you're gonna break something, just saying brake pads are cheaper than an transmission, clutch, or engine.

 

Here what is means.... say your cruising along at 50mph in 5th gear, and down the road the light turns red. Rather than apply the break to start slowing the car you downshift to 4th, then 3rd, and so on to slow the car down.

I do it something, but mostly just use the brakes.


I think that's what the original poster means.

 

ohhhhh a DOWNSHIFT. Got yaa, and the answer to that is NO A downshift will not hurt the car as long as you are not shifting down to far that you end up in redline, but you do waste gas and put a lil more strain on the car, but if you drive hard and rev high its the same difference.

 

In as much as that it is true, you will notice that AT cars where you have to use the brakes to slow down as opposed to MT cras where you have the option of using engine braking, the brake pads will last much longer.

That's all I'm saying..

 

Pros and cons of engine braking:

Cons:
It will add wear to the clutch,
It will add a little wear to the transmission,

Pro's:
Engine braking helps pull oil to the valves and piston rings from the vacuum created in the engine,

It saves the brake pads,

It lowers brake temps,

It feels cool and can keep you in the powerband for sudden bursts of accleration.


I do it once and a while, but will go from 5th or 6th down to 3rd, not each gear with many clutch ins and outs.
If you rev match, most of the clutch wear wont happen, but that takes a lot of practice..

It is important to engine brake on long down hill runs, otherwise the brakes can overheat.

Brett

 

Now of course, it would not be advised to downshift from 6th gear and traveling at about 75mph to 3rd gear or lower. But a systematic slow-down and appropriate downshifting is going to be OK? Most of the time I use this only when I'm traveling at low speeds anyways.

At highway speeds, brakes are you best bet to ensure that the speed comes down quickly.

Regards

 

race track - yes. don't care about $$$ spent there.

normal driving - as little as i can. obviously brake pads are a LOT cheaper than tranny, clutch and maybe engine. beside, whom are you trying kill coming out of a turn on your local hwy anyway?

 

MT6? Go ahead and downshift. My 92 Accord has 285K on it. I downshifted on almost every decelleration from over 35 MPH or so. I did the first clutch change at 250K, and I did not baby the clutch. That thing had thousands of high effort launches on it. Downshifting also sounds really cool, especially if you have an aftermarket exhaust.

Bottom line: Honda/Acura makes very good engines, clutches, and manual transmissions. Your are not going to noticibly shorten their life by downshifting unless you botch it all the time.

You AT5 guys are on your own. If the 3rd gear clutch pack is not getting enough fluid circulation for proper cooling during normal operation, I wouldn't go and add to it's load by downshifting.

 

Can someone please explain how engine braking contributes to either engine or gearbox wear? An improperly executed shift can increase clutch wear; however, proper technique nearly eliminates this.

 

No biggie to do this and it is the preferred method to slow the vehicle down in adverse road conditions. At least it used to be before ABS etc. And with the rev limiter in the TL you don't even have to worry about going down to the next gear too quickly.

Go for it!

 

5 -> 4 yes
4 -> 3 yes

Nothing lower.

 

i agree - it puts stress on the tranny. a tranny that sucks in the first place. why take the risk that something might happen.

 

Something several of you are missing in this.

HiTEC was close when he talked about brakes being much cheaper than clutches. But there are times when you should and must downshift.

Cha726: Downshifting will most definitely hurt the clutch assembly if not done correctly, (and potentially the engine under certain conditions). And frankly, I would bet a month's wages that over 80% of the people who drive vehicles with manual transmissions do not know how to properly operate them.. and in particular, downshifting.

Brettg: You know I respect your postings, having read a bunch of them. But I have to take issue with your statement about "adding wear to the clutch". If done properly, downshifting is less injurious to the clutch assembly than starting off from a standing start in first gear.

I've posted the following quite a few times, but here goes again. I hope y'all get something from it. Please excuse the redundancy.. it's a collection of postings I've done from another site.




Note: As it says, this is a collage of various postings I have made over the past one and a half years on the altimas.net website. So you are likely to see redundancy as well as a few other items of disarray. But enjoy and I hope you learn something.




PROPER MANUAL TRANSMISSION DRIVING TECHNIQUES

What follows is a collection of writings which I have posted at various times on this website in an effort to help answer some questions regarding the proper manner in which a manual transmission should be operated. While there are certainly many ways to drive a car with a manual transmission, there is really only one correct way. I was most fortunate to have learned these techniques while I was still in my teenage years. In so doing, I was able to avoid developing entrenched habits before they became really bad habits and difficult to correct. It is my hope that this helps you learn what I have learned and perfected over the years. If you do, you will reap the rewards, both financial and in the knowledge that you have mastered a technique that few do in their lifetimes. Have fun!

Under normal driving situations (not racing), when you start out from a standing start, you do so with the lowest possible RPMs, get the clutch out to full engagement as soon as you can while adding throttle. If you do this correctly, the transition will be smooth and seamless, and the wear on your clutch disk, pressure plate, release bearing, and flywheel will be minimized.

If properly designed (sufficient size and clamping pressure, etc.), and properly installed with no defects (correct torque, non-faulty equipment, alignment, etc.), then the next, and most important, factor to the life of the clutch assembly is the operator.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY A CLUTCH CANNOT LAST THE LIFE OF THE ENGINE UNDER NORMAL DRIVING CONDITIONS.

When I speak of engine life here, I am referring to life before a serious teardown or part replacement such as a timing chain (200,000+ miles) or headwork. If you cannot get at least 100,000 miles out of a clutch, you are doing something terribly wrong. Obviously, racing and other extreme conditions such as towing constitute a whole different approach and, as such, do not come under this.


Don'ts:

Do not use any more engine speed (RPMs) than absolutely necessary to get the car rolling in first gear.

Do not hold the car on a hill with the clutch.

Do not wait for a traffic light to turn green with the transmission in gear and the clutch depressed.

Do not rest your foot on the clutch while driving.


Do not ride the clutch in any gear (obviously you will to a small degree in first to start off).

Do not down shift by just removing your foot from the gas, moving the shifter into a lower gear, then releasing the clutch slowly.


Do's

Start off smoothly and with low engine speed, and shift in such a manner that if you had a passenger on board, they would not even notice the shifts.

Hold the car on hills with the brakes.. that's what brakes are for. NEVER hold a car on a hill with the clutch. The amount of heat generated by doing this is incredible.

While waiting for a light to change or while sitting in heavy traffic, put the transmission in neutral and get your foot completely off of the clutch petal. Leaving it in gear for extended periods heats up and shortens the life of the release bearing. The normal condition of a clutch is fully engaged so it stands to reason that's where it should be most of the time.

Resting your foot on the clutch petal while driving engages the release bearing.. see above.

Avoid riding the clutch as much as is humanly possible. You will extend its life significantly.

If you do not know how to properly downshift, DON’T. Use the brakes (should do this anyway), and avoid downshifting any more than necessary. Improper downshifting is analogous to riding the clutch because that is what you are actually doing. Learn how to properly downshift first and save yourself the frustration of premature clutch failure.

Clutches are wear items, heavily affected by heat caused by friction. In a front wheel drive car, they are costly to replace, so unless you like shelling out a lot of money periodically for the replacement of these components, learn the correct way. Learn it until it becomes second nature like breathing.



I spent some time teaching a lady with whom I worked 10 years ago these techniques when she purchased a new '92 Honda Accord LX. When I last spoke with her, she had well over 140,000 miles on the original clutch with no signs of slippage. So I'm not jerking anyone's chain here. Learn to operate a manual transmission correctly and you will reap the rewards by saving a lot of money. Plus you will be one of the few who know how to do this right.

I don't mean to set myself up here as some kind of guru because I am not. But I have been driving vehicles with manual transmissions for over 40 years. I have spent the time to perfect the process into an art form because when done correctly, that’s what it is. When I sold my '88 Mustang LX 302CID, it was 6 years old and had 77,000 miles on it. When the buyer drove it, he asked me when I replaced the clutch because to him, it felt very positive. I told him that I had never replaced it and that it was the original unit. I added that it wouldn't make any sense to replace a clutch after only 77,000 miles since that is not very much wear. He had a little bit of a hard time believing this, but he did buy the car. Three months later, he called me up to let me know how much he liked the car and to tell me had had not wrapped it around a tree. He again asked about the clutch and I again told him that it was the original clutch.

I used to own a 1966 Chevelle SS396/360HP. I was the original owner of the car. For a period of about 2 years, I was street racing the car frequently on the weekends. At 83,000 miles when I sold it, it would still break traction in all four gears and the clutch had no slippage. It was tight and strong. Now granted, American cars have traditionally had stronger clutches than Japanese cars. This is changing because the Japanese are putting larger and stronger (torque) engines in their cars.



Downshifting

Ah yes, downshifting. If I had to name just one facet of manual transmission errors-of-operation, this would probably be it.

To understand how to operate a manual transmission, you have to know how the clutch assembly and transmission work, and I am going to take the assumption that most do on this forum. I will only clarify synchronizers. They serve to match the speed of the gears in the transmission as the shifter is moved to a given gear. Now for downshifting.

Let's say you are in fourth gear and you are approaching a stop sign, so you decide to downshift from fourth gear into third. What most people do is just remove their foot from the throttle, depress the clutch while moving the shifter from fourth to third, then start releasing the clutch slowly until they achieve full engagement. If you do this, what you are actually doing is riding the clutch in third gear. After all, the engine has returned to idle (or close to it), you get into third, then just ease the clutch out which pulls the engine from idle up to the RPM's at which it will operate at whatever speed you are traveling in third gear. Here is the correct way to do this in steps that I will break down in a moment.

Raise your foot off of the throttle.

Depress the clutch.

Start the shifter up into third.

As you pass through the neutral gate, let the clutch out a bit (doesn't have to be all the way) while at the same time blipping the throttle to increase engine speed BEYOND that which it will operate in the chosen lower gear.

Depress the clutch again.

Engage the chosen lower gear.

Let the clutch out while adding throttle.

As the engine RPM's decrease they will be met by the engaging clutch and opening throttle.

This should be a simple, smooth, fluid motion and you will know you've done it right if there is no jerking as the clutch comes out in the last step. Now for some details.

As you move into the neutral gate with your foot off of the throttle, the engine RPM's will be returning to idle. This is the point at which you want to blip the throttle a bit while at the same time engaging the clutch some. You want to get the engine turning faster than it will when you are in the lower gear you have chosen. The reason is that you want to spin the gears up to a speed that equals that at which they will be operating when you finally release the clutch in your downshift. If you do this right, there is no clutch slippage because the engine and the gears in the transmission will be spinning at the same or nearly the same RPM's. No slippage means you will get into gear with full engagement of the clutch sooner and with virtually no wear. To best understand this, you really need to know how a clutch assembly and transmission work together to deliver power from the engine to the drive wheels.

This takes a lot of practice, but if you get it down, you will be heads and shoulders above just about anyone else who drives a car with a manual transmission. You will begin to notice the mistakes other are making when they drive. Learn from their mistakes and it will both save you money and make you a far better driver.

So it's in with the clutch, start the shifter into the chosen lower gear, while passing through the neutral gate, blip the throttle and at the same time engage the clutch a bit to spin up the gears, then back in with the clutch as you get into the chosen gear, then finally release the clutch in one smooth operation.

Here's another little tip. Say you are waiting at a light for the green and your transmission is in neutral like it should be with your foot completely off of the clutch petal. When the light turns green, instead of just depressing the clutch and pushing the shifter up into first, pull the shifter partially into a higher gear first, such as second or third. The gears in those selections are not spinning as fast as the gears in first. By starting the shifter into a higher gear before you go to into first gear, you will cause less wear on the synchronizers and they will last far longer because they do not have to stop gears which are spinning at a higher speed. For cars which do not have synchronized reverse, definitely do this and you will not experience the grinding affect when shifting into reverse.

Say you are driving normally, shifting up through the gears to the one in which you wish to be for cruising. As you disengage the clutch and move the shifter to the next higher gear, you might notice a slight resistance just before you finish the shift. What you feel is the synchronizer for that gear forcing the drive gear(s) from the input shaft and the gears selected to "mesh". That is to say, their speeds are forced to equalize so that as they engage, there is no grinding and no damage to the gear teeth. That said, we can move to double clutching.

Double clutching was a technique that came about when earlier manual transmissions did not have synchronizers. If you did not double clutch, you would experience some serious gear grinding when shifting.

If you did not have synchronizers in your transmission, you would have had two choices when shifting gears: (1) put up with some really serious grinding and damage/breakage to gear teeth, or (2) manually match the speed of the gears in each selected shift so that you would eliminate the problems just mentioned in #1.

Suppose you are traveling in second gear, the engine is turning at 2500 RPM, and you are getting ready to shift to third. At the road speed you are going, let's say that once in third, your engine would be turning at 1800 RPM. When you remove your foot from the gas, the engine is going to loose RPMs quickly and by the time you get into third, the engine might only be turning 1200 RPM. Without synchronizers, you would need to raise the engine back up to 1800 RPM in order for the gears to mesh. By blipping the throttle and at the same time letting the clutch out some when you are passing through the neutral gate, you will both increase engine RPM and increase gear speed. As the engine RPMs fall back off, they will reach a point at which you will be able to complete the shift.

Since for years, manual transmissions have been fully synchronized, there is no need whatsoever to double clutch when upshifting and I definitely recommend against this practice.

Now downshifting is much like this, only in reverse. In other words, you are going from a higher gear to a lower gear so if your engine was turning at 2500 RPM and you wanted to shift to second, You would want to blip the throttle enough to raise engine speed to perhaps around 3200 - 3500 RPM.

When you are upshifting, the RPMs fall off and most people find it pretty easy to adjust to this and to add throttle at the right time so that when the clutch comes back out, they have the proper RPM's for the gear selection/road speed.

However, most people downshift by (1) removing their foot from the throttle, (2) moving the shifter into the next lower (or chosen) gear, then (3) slowly releasing the clutch while adding little or no throttle. This is NOT the proper manner in which to downshift. What you are doing in effect, is riding the clutch in reverse. In other words, you probably wouldn't dare attempt to start your car off in third gear because you would have to add a lot of throttle and really slip the clutch to get the car moving. When you downshift like the example I just gave, you are doing something similar to starting off in a higher gear, though it does take more energy to get a car moving from a dead start. Now if you double clutch during the downshift, you are spinning up the gears and the transition to the next gear will be quite smooth.


Junkyard asked a question about the concept of “passing through the neutral gate”. You don’t stop or stay in neutral. You are just passing through, so to speak. In your second question, you said I had mentioned to put the car in neutral when downshifting. Not exactly. Try this with the engine off.

Put the car in fourth. Depress the clutch and shift to third and let the clutch out. Now do the same thing, only this time as you pass through the neutral gate, let the clutch out some or a good deal and blip the throttle, then clutch back in, get into third, clutch comes out for the final time. That is the movement you want.

Incidentally, blipping the throttle is just a little stab at the petal, enough to raise RPMs to the desired level. You do not want to be on the throttle long because you will be in the process of shifting. Yes, this does take a lot of practice and may not come easily for many, but it is the best way, in fact the only proper way, to downshift because it very significantly reduces clutch and synchronizer wear (especially clutch), and once you get the hang of it, you will be able to do it quite fast.

The bottom line to all of this folks is to match engine speed to wheel speed in a given gear, and to do it in such a manner as to eliminate undue trauma to your drive train. I do this all of the time and have been downshifting like this since my late teens. I actually learned it from a magazine article (as I can best recall). If you know how a manual transmission and clutch assembly operate, all of the components and how they perform together, you will understand the beauty of the process.

Oh the grinding noise Junkyard hears when he starts letting up the clutch too quickly is most likely due to not having fully engaged the gear teeth and they separate (pop out of gear). That or he actually begins engaging the gear teeth before the clutch is fully depress so there is still some flywheel/disk/pressure plate contact.


One of the things I noticed right off the bat on my SE was that the clutch began to engage much too close to the floor for me (a contributor to the problem Junkyard has had). It was starting to engage about 1 inch from the floor, so I adjusted it out to 2 inches and it is fine. If you do this, just make sure you have the required toeplay, otherwise you will prematurely wear out your release bearing.

The purpose of letting the clutch out some as you pass through the neutral gate is to spin the gears up in preparation for the speed at which they must be at for the lower gear selection. This will allow you to get into that gear very easily. When you depress the clutch, you disengage the crankshaft from the transmission. The gears in the transmission will begin to slow down. By letting out the clutch some (or completely) in the neutral gate, you once again, MOMENTARILY, engage the full drive train and get the gears spinning. Only this time since you have blipped the throttle, they'll be spinning faster. As they slow down from the higher speed, your clutch will be coming out for the final time with the transmission in gear and the mesh will be smooth.

Try it both ways. Do it first the way you do it and notice that you have to add a little bit of force to get the shifter into gear. That's because the synchronizers are doing their job of gear speed meshing. Now try it the way I outlined and if you do it right, you will have virtually no resistance as you slip the shifter into your chosen gear.

Instead of going right into first as the light starts to go green, try starting the shifter into second gear.. don't have to go all the way into gear, though it won't hurt. This slows the gears down just as though you had gone on into first, but it's much easier on the synchronizers. And you won't get the "crunch" you mentioned when you have to move quickly.


To prevent rollback; practice, practice, practice, practice.

One way to do this is to find a nice little hill someplace where you won't be a bother to anyone. Take along some masking tape and mark off two sections with the tape a foot apart. Your goal is to keep the car from coasting back more than 1 foot.. of course you do not use the clutch to hold the car.. use the brakes. As you learn to do this, find another hill a little steeper. And so on, and so on.

 

Congratulations! I've been arguing for years that barring unusual situations (towing, racing, living in San Francisco) a clutch should last the life of an engine.. as in before the first serious teardown.

Your 285,000 miles on your clutch backs this up. It never ceases to amaze me that there are people out there who have told me that they can't seem to get over 50,000 miles out of a clutch so, of course, they don't believe me when I tell them that the reason they're only getting 50,000 miles from their clutch is that they are not operating it correctly.

Good for you!!

 

I did qualify my statement by saying unless you rev match which takes a lot of practice.....
I dont, I dont drive the car enough, and until you make it a habit, its a lot of work.
My wife drives the car during the week, and she does not rev match or downshift much.
We likely wont own the car long enough to wear the clutch out no matter what we do to it...

Brett

 

I too had a 1987 Civic Si that had 220,000 miles on the original clutch and did engine brake almost allways adding every now and then a double clutch to get the RPM's equal to the lower gear and I say that I would have still been driving it if it wouldn't have been for this teenager deciding that this stop sign was optional....grrr


One comment thou is when doing this on back roads I sometimes see the expressions of ppl ( don't want to say women in particular.. ) that seem upset to the fact that they can't tell I'm braking and seem to come up closer to me than they wanted making some gestures I will keep to myself, so be carefull if the guy behind you is waiting for the brake lights to go on and they don't, he or ehem she may end up in your back seat...

 

This is an interesting question and a great thread.

I use the sport shifter on my 5AT to engine brake nearly every day. Why have a manumatic if you can't use it? Why design such a device if using it will break your tranny or engine? Some of these arguments make only partial sense to me for this reason. I'd love to hear an Acura engineer chime in on this issue.

I use it most frequently in heavy morning traffic. That nice, wide powerband in 3rd gear is perfect for slow-go traffic as the engine will slow you down enough not to use brakes while at the same time there's enough power for acceleration.

I also use it at this time of year, driving on icy roads. Most of the time I can time a stop, and I drive far enough behind the vehicle in front of me to engine brake rather than slam the brakes when it's time to begin to slow down.

I suppose some people afraid of automatic tranny crapouts will tell me I shouldn't be starting the sport shifter in 2nd gear on a snowy day, which I have to do sometimes to avoid spinning the front wheels.

Sorry, I learned to drive with a 5-speed Honda Civic (R.I.P. )and it influences the way I drive my automatics as well.

 

I have to disagree with the person who said the car rev-limiter is going to protect your engine during downshifts and engine braking. This is totally false and the engine rev limiter will NOT protect you during downshifts.

The rev limiter will cut the throttle if you hit it. With downshifting the accelerator is not making the engine rev high, it's inertia of the vehicle moving. If you are doing 100mph, and you shift from 6th to 3rd you're going to have problems and the rev limiter is not going to help you.

 

^ I think they were talking about the auto not allowing you to sportshift into a gear too low. NOT the manual tranny.

 

Yes, that would make sense. Thanks!

 

for AT, I noticed 3-> 2 is very abrupt. 4->3 5->4 is all good

 

I use it all the time too.. but am careful about it. I use it especially in bad road conditions... this last snow storm I rarely did above 30mph and engine braking was definitely the way to go with my crappy tires..

I've learned to drive a manual, but still learning how to downshift properly...!

 

I have tried a few times to engine brake... but this engine does not do a good job..

It spins freely at 3,000 RPMs and is not slowing me down that much... and I do not want to go into a lower gear to get me at a lot higher RPM...

Now, a good old fashion V8 will do a great job of engine braking... I mean it will feel like you ARE applying the brake.. I could slow down to almost 5 mph on my Formula pretty quickly..

And as one poster noted, a rev limiter might not protect your engine... but I found out the hard way (on my Formula) that your engine will not spin that much faster than designed... i downshifted to second when doing about 75 and the back wheels locked up with the engine braking... lasted what seemed like a long time, but was probably one second... I do not know if the TL would do the same and I do not plan to experiment to find out....

 

Pretty simple, compare the cost of brake pads/rotors to a 5AT transmission rebuild or clutch replacement on a 6MT.

Unless you are in a dangerous situation (going down a long steep hill and the brakes are hot and fading) it is not adviseable to use engine braking. The brakes on the TL and most modern cars are more than sufficient is stopping the vehicle. The traction limitaions of the tires limit the stopping distances more than the brake capability on modern road cars.

I'm also not talking about racing where engine braking is the norm for many motorsports (esspecially NASCAR stock cars on road circuits).

 

Using engine braking with a FWD car can get you into some trouble under certain conditions.. in particular gravel, sandy road surface, or icy/slippery snow. The reason is quite simple. With a rear drive car, of course the rear wheels deliver the motivating force.. and also the dragging force when engine braking is employeed. They act as a parachute to slow the car.

But with a front drive car, sudden and abrupt engine braking on a slick surface can cause the car to "turn around on itself". The front wheels become the center point and the car can spin around much like the hands on a watch. Under slippery conditions, consider using the emergency brake in little "stabs" to slow the vehicle more carefully (in concert with both mild engine braking and normal braking). The combination of these three methods of slowing the car might help keep you out of a accident.

I should add this this is one of the three major faults of a FWD platform.

 

So what are the other two?

 

That is an excellent observation. However, under slippery conditions, from now on I'll always use the brakes...they've got anti-lock built in.

Reminds me of when I was learning to ride a motorcycle. I was told to use the front break for stopping. It worked fine until I was on oil covered slick asphalt. I went down like a fat man on an icy sidewalk.

 

Yeah, just like any other vehicle platform, you really need to see how it's going to react and perform under sudden or inverse conditions. I would bet that the majority of people just take delivery then start driving without even practicing.. as in the first snow, taking the car to a school parking lot or such and causing it to loose traction, then trying to regain control. Out on the streets, this could save your car and more importantly, your life.

 

Hey Bob, how's it going?

The other two major drawbacks of a FWD drive platform are: you can't steer the car with the rear wheels when in a bad situation; and if you ever get into a slide and wind up hitting a curb hard with a front wheel, you can cause a lot of expensive damage to your car (transaxle, front end geometry, etc.).

There are other inherent negatives, but I believe they are more along the lines of preference.. such as RWD systems can handle more powerful engine setups; RWD has it all over FWD in the traction department (I'm talking as in acceleration primarily).

But I will freely and readily admit that FWD has come a long way since the late seventies and early 80's when it was really crap. Today's premium FWD cars (like the TL) bear no resemblance at all to those earlier models. For most drivers, it does just fine.

 

Thanks for your answer, SB. I was just curious about your opinion. I am not a FWD fanboy by any means and am always happy to learn about this stuff since I know so little.

 

You're most welcome.

I suppose I should reiterate a part of my previous post in order to quell any possible negative repercussions which might be raised for my "dissing" FWD cars. Like you, I am more a fan of RWD than FWD and for very good reasons, I can assure you. Most revolve around the performance aspect of the car.

But I really like my TL and enjoy driving it, and unless I am doing something out of my ordinary driving mode, I virtually cannot tell if it's a front driver. The car has enough other positives to compensate for any things lacking in the FWD area, that I can easily overlook same and just enjoy the machine. Besides, I don't plan on drag racing this car anyway.. other than the occasional stop light runs, and those are almost always the product of some a--hole trying to snake me at a light where once through the intersection, the road changes to a single lane and his disappears.

Were I of a mind to take my TL to the strip on the weekends.. well, I wouldn't have bought a TL for this endeavor to begin with.

Have fun and enjoy the ride!

 

Well, I dont know if anyone else has noticed this but if im going down a hill and theres a stop at the bottom. When I start braking, it seems as if the transmission tries to engine brake for me. Its like it downshifts and then it seems as if the pressure that Im applying to the brakes is too much.