paddle shifters

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In the 4 years of ownership, I might have used them no more than half a dozen times. If you really want to override the default shifts, one can always manipulate the gas pedal to provoke a shift. Besides, paddle are essentially a "hint" to the car to change the gear and NOT a "command"!
 
I always considered them a marketing gimmick for itchy finger (enthusiast) driving, for those who miss driving a stick.

My dad, an automotive transmission expert with numerous patents, remarked on people who would play with their shifter during driving. Transmissions are designed to pick the optimal shift points. Just leave it in D and forget it. Selectors 2 and 1 are chiefly for downhill braking and maybe a few other rare situations.
 
Not many. I drove up to the hill country last week and thought I might dabble with them - but there were really no hills the ecoboost even noticed. Had to laugh thinking back to being 18 and driving those hills in a screaming VW beetle ...
 
Originally Posted By: Kestas
I always considered them a marketing gimmick for itchy finger (enthusiast) driving, for those who miss driving a stick.

My dad, an automotive transmission expert with numerous patents, remarked on people who would play with their shifter during driving. Transmissions are designed to pick the optimal shift points. Just leave it in D and forget it. Selectors 2 and 1 are chiefly for downhill braking and maybe a few other rare situations.


To be fair, lately "optimal" and "most fuel efficient" are the same thing. Nog optimal for the conditions or driver feel/experience. Not arguing that auto tarns programming isn't there for a reason, and not doing what its designed to do, but its obvious on many models that just sticking it in D can sometimes feel pretty terrible when motoring along. My Jeep for instance will basically lug itself around 50ish mpg. Which is fine, but it will then shift down way more often. with the select shift jazz I can manually shift it into 4th gear, leaving it at an RPM where its much happier.

In most auto trans with them I wouldn't pretend its a manual at all, but the ability to select a gear sometimes really does improve the feel of the car depending on conditions.
 
Originally Posted By: HemiHawk
Originally Posted By: Kestas
I always considered them a marketing gimmick for itchy finger (enthusiast) driving, for those who miss driving a stick.

My dad, an automotive transmission expert with numerous patents, remarked on people who would play with their shifter during driving. Transmissions are designed to pick the optimal shift points. Just leave it in D and forget it. Selectors 2 and 1 are chiefly for downhill braking and maybe a few other rare situations.


To be fair, lately "optimal" and "most fuel efficient" are the same thing. Nog optimal for the conditions or driver feel/experience. Not arguing that auto tarns programming isn't there for a reason, and not doing what its designed to do, but its obvious on many models that just sticking it in D can sometimes feel pretty terrible when motoring along. My Jeep for instance will basically lug itself around 50ish mpg. Which is fine, but it will then shift down way more often. with the select shift jazz I can manually shift it into 4th gear, leaving it at an RPM where its much happier.

In most auto trans with them I wouldn't pretend its a manual at all, but the ability to select a gear sometimes really does improve the feel of the car depending on conditions.


Then my Tundra had programming by monkeys--I don't see how it's fuel efficient to unlock the convertor and use slippage in high gear while hill climbing. That's exactly what it will do: unlock the convertor first and stay in sixth. Many many times I have clicked down a gear, heard the convertor lock up, and had lower engine rpm. Biggest complaint I have about the truck, really.

Most of the time I want the same operation as a good manual: when I let off the gas I want the vehicle to coast in gear. No rpm jumps. My Camry is horrible at this--it unlocks and drops rpm on coasting. Always. The Tundra will stay locked during coast, but if I am too fast on the throttle it will unlock. For no good reason. I've adjusted; the Camry I will basically never fully lift off, and the Tundra I know not to be too aggressive on the throttle.

Neither has "paddle" shifters but basically I can select the topmost gear it can shift up into. And both get used heavily by me, as often I don't see a reason to shift into a too-high gear when I know it'll need to downshift again in 50 yards. The first 2-3 gears it's not so bad with, but it's the upper gears which often need locking out.
 
One pet peeve of mine is the lockup torque converter on my car engages and disengages numerous times every mile when driving on the freeway. I'm not a spastic driver.
 
I have the paddle shifters on the Camry; I think I've used them once. I typically just use the manual selector for going up and down the mountain. 2 out of the 4 vehicles in the fleet are traditional manuals, so using the console shifter feels more natural to me.
 
Drove a rental 2016 Corvette with automatic and paddle shifters. While the magazines all claim the new 8 speed transmission shifts like lighting, I found that using the paddle shifters still resulted in quite a delay from the time I selected a gear, to the time it shifted. I also found that I mistakenly asked for a shift that it could not achieve, such as redline in 2nd, then downshift to 1st, Or, redline in 2nd for too long, then pull the shifter, at which point the delay was there, that was just my stupidity. It would be better if the shifts were instantly responsive. Otherwise, I found it far easier and more effective to simply leave it in "track" mode and let the auto do it's thing.

I think the auto starts the shift process before the engine hits redline, and therefore shifts on time, at redline. When done manually, I had to pull the paddle shifter 500 or more RPM BEFORE I wanted it to shift.
 
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