Auto Trans paddle shift issue
 

Car has roughly 800 miles on it, was cruising not using paddle shifters doing ~80 mph. Got off the highway and decided to swap over to manual for a bit on the back roads to have a bit of fun. Shifting around 2800rpm eventually hitting 6th gear at around 60mph. Problem is I found myself stuck at 60 unable to accelerate further, I didn't completely open up the throttle but I did put a decent amount of pressure down without seeing any response from the car. It felt as if I had no more power left. Swapped the car back into automatic and immediately felt the Horsepower kick in.

Am I shifting too early? I'll be driving home again on the highway and will try shifting nearer to 4000 rpm. I'm going to the dealership on monday to have lojack installed along. I'll be bringing it to their attention either way, but I wanted to see if this is a known issue or I'm the only one.

When you put it back into D it probably downshifted. 6th is great for fuel-efficient cruising but is terrible to try an accelerate in especially at 60 or above. At freeway speeds I'll typically drop down to 4th for passing or any kind of quick increase in speed.

Gear ratios for AT below. 6th is pretty weak - it's there for fuel economy, not power.

1st - 3.538
2nd - 2.060
3rd - 1.404
4th - 1.000
5th - 0.713
6th - 0.582

You should be hitting 60 around 3rd gear. 2nd tops out at 60 IIRC.

Check out Acceleration in gear pic:
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10629

Thats for MT. AT's have slightly shorter gear ratios for efficiency so you have to shift a little earlier than stated values

Thanks guys this really cleared this up, if my account was mature enough to thank I'd thank you both!

Also, be aware that the paddle shifters are VERY sensitive; it's easy to accidentally "double-click" the paddles and essentially skip a gear. I don't believe it actually skips a gear, but it shifts so fast that it feels like it if you aren't careful.

Same thing happened to me today, except I had it in 4th. Was stop and go traffic on the highway, so downshifted from 5 to 4, then when the road opened up a bit, gave it some throttle, but revs stayed around 1500 no matter how much throttle. Put her over to auto, immediately revved higher and got power. Then back to manual, and problem was cleared. Too identical to be coincidence.

The car has rev matching downshifting so most likely you were in 4th at a very slow speed (stop and go as you said) 20-25? Which is too much strain on the tranny to produce any power.

Next time this happens down shift even more and test it out. OP should try it out as well!

Don't treat this real paddle shifter like logitech wheel at home :). Switch to "D" mode till you know some basic MT gear and then go from there.

Anyone else have an AT BRZ? I kinda wish I got the AT version. Ive seen people get over 45+ MPG and I wouldn't doubt that considering I get around 35 MPG in the highway.

I kinda like the paddle shifters better than the stick shift too :( I find myself rocking the car when downshifting... maybe I need to apply more power so it doesnt rock back and forth? lol.

Nope, I was in 4th at around 60kph. The concern is not that it wasn't producing power, it was that the tachy wasn't moving at all, even with half throttle. That's not right.

I drove a manual before this car, got AT bc it's DD and Toronto traffic is probably only second to LA traffic. Plus, this AT is really sweet for a slush box.

Engine and the tach not revving? Or just the tach? I'd say its probably the ECU kicking in and keeping you from destroying the drivetrain.

Keep this in mind you are in 4th... which in MT has a top speed of 109 MPH.. AT is slightly lower than that but still way off from where your shifting at. You should be looking at 2nd or 3rd max at that speed.

Why are these people putting their lugging cars into D instead of just downshift is my question? Have you ever had an issue after one or two downshifts?

You're lugging the car. Downshift it again...

Shiftdown! Till you hear the engine breaking!

I have to agree with the chaps saying to just shift down. You guys aren't going to get any puff trying to accelerate from a cruising speed at a higher gear like you guys described. The reason you guys are getting acceleration in D is because the car is definitely dropping a gear or two to get into the meatier part of the powerband. I know we like to tout our "Flat torque curve" statement but you're not going to get much of anything at 2k RPM.

Reading this thread swayed me to think the white FR-S AT I have a deposit down for could possibly be the correct decision (over the FR-S MT). I live in L.A. and this will be my daily driver.

Bringing a thread back from the dead, but I'm just curious -

I've been doing a lot of commuting in traffic lately, and I was wondering if it's bad for the engine (I have an AT BRZ) if I am in 6th gear running 45mph accelerating to 75mph by depressing the gas pedal all the way down?

I assume this means being in 6th at 45 mph and absolutely flooring it

Very bad long term, thats called lugging an engine, in the simplest way it's almost like being in first and carrying or towing several tons of weight, its very hard on the connecting rods and crank bearing and rest of the drive train for that matter. It's like if you were riding a bike when you were a kid trying to go up a hill in the highest gear your legs would hurt and you would give up, thats basically whats going on. What you should do is go to 5th or 4th and floor it up through the gears:burnrubber:

I think that part of what you are experiencing is what has been said above about being in too high of a gear for accelerating. These engines just don't have the torque to accelerate at cruising RPM, they like to rev.


I also think that maybe you're used to the way automatics in other cars behave. I don't drive my car much in D, so I'm not sure how the torque converter behaves when not in manual or sport mode. Our car locks the torque converter very aggressively, as soon as I switch into 2nd the torque converter locks. If you are expecting an instant change in RPM when you mash the throttle it is because you are used to unlocked torque converters that allow slippage.


The locking torque converter helps fuel economy and makes the car much more responsive because the drivetrain is rigidly fixed to the engine. As a consequence, the lack of slipping makes each gear a little less flexible and requires more downshifts to get the torque you need at the wheels.

Are you running in manual mode and holding 6th gear? In that case, yea, probably not good. If you are in auto mode, the tranny should be downshifting.

Hmm, I thought our manual mode had some programming that won't allow the car to lug? Usually when I do accelerate in 6th gear I do notice that even at 45mph the rpms jump to 2500 instead of where they should be at 1700. Going up a hill is a different story..

Our manual mode prevents us from downshifting into redline so I'm assuming it won't let us purposely damage the engine from lugging at 6th gear? :iono:

In manual mode, it will downshift on the low end, but only on the very edge of the engine stalling. You have to be way down in the RPMs, usually below 1000 (and more towards 500) my experience. It doesn't prevent you from accelerating in the wrong gear though.

On the high end, you are correct, it will not let you downshift into the redline, but you can bounce off of it all day long and it won't change gears.

In my experience it unlocks the torque converter about 100 rpm or so before it would downshift to prevent stalling. Doesn't seem to do it to prevent lugging, just a softer anti-stall than a downshift.

In a manual gt86, you will lug the engine if you try push it below 2000rpm. Unless it's a flat or descending ground. Maybe it's stopping you from lugging yours. Have you tried down shifting again ?

:bonk:It's been 3 years.....I think he figured it out by now.

Same deal - if I wasnt stuck in the minus-one-lane-now rush hour traffic 2-4 times a day, 5 days a week...

AT was really the only choice for my commute. Still a ton of fun though :party0030: