Stuck in manual drive?
 

I always drive in "drive." I do not use the manual setting. I recently had a 1400 road trip and the day after I returned and the odometer hit 10,000, the care felt funny while driving, like the engine was revving and I could really feel the car shifting as my speed increased. The speedometer also took a long time to come down when I slowed and at one point said 5 mph when I was completely stopped. I have never driven the car in "manual" (sorry guys, chick here, it's probably wasted on me) but I know for a fact that when I first bought the car 8 months ago you could hit the paddles with the car in drive and nothing happened. Now, when you hit the paddles in drive, the manual gears show up on the dash. The service guy at the dealer thinks I'm wrong about everything. I know something's not right. Suggestions? Thanks in advance.

You can use the paddles in drive mode and it shifts but after a few seconds it goes back to drive. That's odd about being completely at a complete stop with speedometer at 5. Is go take it in and check it out, again.


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If you hit the paddles while in "drive" the car will automatically go to manual mode, unless you hit the up shift paddle while in 6th then it won't do anything. Same goes for down and gear 1.

However, I am not sure if the engine will shift automatically once the RPMs go slow high like in manual mode. I never tried it.

It will shift up or down, but unless you have the stick in the manual mode it will go back to "D" on it's own.

OP, when you are using the paddles, do you have it in "Manual" mode? Regardless, if you are still showing something on the speedo when stopped that would be a problem.

No, I'm in drive. I do not use manual but it feels like the car is in it anyway. Not really sure how to explain it but it just feels different.

Are you sure the car isn't in sport mode?

Are you sure the car is completely stopped at 5mph? I know sometimes you stop at a stop sign, look down and it says 4/5 and you feel like you're stopped but you really aren't.

These are my best theories for what you are experiencing.


Unless your car was defective from day one, the paddles do work in regular drive D. If you were easy on the gas and tried to shift to a higher gear too early, it won't let you. That may have made it seem like they weren't active. If lately you tried it while under a little heavier acceleration or for a downshift, you may have been surprised that in fact they do work in D.


Take this in the best spirit that it is intended. The big dial in the middle of your dash is a tachometer. It measures the speed that your engine is turning and not the wheels on your car. With an automatic the engine is still spinning slowly even when the wheels on the road are at a dead stop. The tachometer will sit between 0 and 1 or five hash marks above 0. Could that be what you are looking at? The speedometer is the dial to the left and should read 0 when you are stopped as well as the digital readout with the big orange numbers. Forgive me if you already knew any of this.

[QUOTE=dem00n;1602644]Are you sure the car isn't in sport mode?

Are you sure the car is completely stopped at 5mph? I know sometimes you stop at a stop sign, look down and it says 4/5 and you feel like you're stopped but you really aren't.[/QUO

Yeah, I'm sure. Stopped in my driveway with my foot on the brake.

Take this in the best spirit that it is intended. The big dial in the middle of your dash is a tachometer. It measures the speed that your engine is turning and not the wheels on your car. With an automatic the engine is still spinning slowly even when the wheels on the road are at a dead stop. The tachometer will sit between 0 and 1 or five hash marks above 0. Could that be what you are looking at? The speedometer is the dial to the left and should read 0 when you are stopped as well as the digital readout with the big orange numbers. Forgive me if you already knew any of this.[/QUOTE]

Seriously? I was stopped in my driveway with my foot on the brake. I do know the difference between all the little numbers and colors and what's digital and what's not on the dash. I've been driving for 30+ years. Thanks for trying to appease me anyway :)

What happens when the stick is in "M"?

You can use the paddles on the column as you should. When the car is in D it "feels" like it's still in M. You can feel the car revving up to changers the next gear, there is. Hesitancy when you start to slow like you should downshift. I've driven 5 speeds before, I know when to shift. I shouldn't feel those things in D and I didn't for the first 10,000 miles.

Bring it to the dealer, because you have most of us confused here to the point where you won't get a definite answer.

Thank you. I did. I came here because they told me there was nothing wrong.

There probably is nothing wrong then. Besides, if you explained it to them the way you did here, they probably wouldn't know what to look for. Did you ask to go for a test drive with the service tech to show him the issue?

It sounds like you have several things going on.

First, it is a fact that even if you are in drive, the paddle shifters will work.

The revs staying higher than normal sounds like sport mode where gears are selected by the transmission to maximize power while in drive. If you aren't driving aggressively, it will seem weird in the way that the transmission is behaving.

When you say it was showing speed, do you mean showing in the digital speedometer or on the analog speedometer? The tachometer I expect to see something, but, if either speedometer is showing speed when there is none, it sounds like something is not working right. Although the speed sensor is usually something pretty simple and robust (it is rare for it to fail).

Not to sound disrespectful, but, have you compared what you are experiencing to what the owners manual says? If the car is not behaving like it is supposed to according to the manual then you can explain that to the dealership. Otherwise, it does not make sense. It is best to arm yourself with the knowledge in the owners manual. At the least, you will be better able to explain what is going on.

I asked if I could speak to the service tech but they told me that everything I described sounded normal and the tech couldn't find anything wrong.

When you say it was showing speed, do you mean showing in the digital speedometer or on the analog speedometer? The tachometer I expect to see something, but, if either speedometer is showing speed when there is none, it sounds like something is not working right. Although the speed sensor is usually something pretty simple and robust (it is rare for it to fail).

Not to sound disrespectful, but, have you compared what you are experiencing to what the owners manual says? If the car is not behaving like it is supposed to according to the manual then you can explain that to the dealership. Otherwise, it does not make sense. It is best to arm yourself with the knowledge in the owners manual. At the least, you will be better able to explain what is going on.[/QUOTE]

Speed shows on the digital speedometer. Just this morning, I slow to take a corner behind another car and the speedometer showed I was still doing 25. No way. The car in front of me almost came to a complete stop even though we had the right of way and no stop sign.

Then when I accelerated again, all of a sudden the speedometer says I'm doing 45 and you can hear the engine revving.

Demand that they come with you on a test drive. If you are COMPLETELY stopped, your speedo should not be showing anything other than 0 mph.

Go to a different dealer. This is an obvious problem.

Your car sounds possessed. Should be pretty obvious to the tech if they go for even just a test drive around the corner. Obviously they have dismissed you prematurely. If they don't, hopefully you have the ability to go to a different dealer. Hopefully it didn't sound like I thought you were on crack, your situation seems unusual but definitely a legitimate problem with your car.

Intermittent problems like that suck. Good luck getting the tech to try and chase something he doesn't even know actually exists.

Thanks everyone. I'm going to make another appt to rake the car in. I thought maybe the car was finally "broken in" at 10k miles and was now acting "normal." I've had problems with the windows needing to be reinitialized, there's a TSB fir that, and reported it 3 times before they issued the TSB, so figured maybe this is something else Toyota doesn't know about yet :(

Any other FR-S/BRZ owners near you you could have ride along with you for a test?

Is it possible that your digital speedo is reading in KPH instead of MPH right now? That would account for the #s being weird...otherwise sounds like sport mode. Maybe try and reset the ecu...

It sounds like your speed sensor (I believe it is in the differential) is reading incorrectly.

In an Auto trans, the brain needs that speed sensor to operate the tranny.
If it is confused it could act strangely as you describe....

Go to a service manager. Say you want to test drive an auto on the lot to make sure your car reacts the same way because your car is having issues and his tech's are blind siding you about it. Go for a drive WITH HIM in their car. Then take him for a ride WITH HIM in your car. If it's different have him give you a rental so they can see whats going on.

^ This is the logical way of going about things at a dealership.

If they refuse call SOA or go to a different dealership.

Any word on what happened?

So, are we still stuck in Manual Drive?

Sounds like your car is stuck in "Sport Mode" and you speedometer is out of sync.

Demand a tech to go for a drive with you or have them drive it with you along as a passenger.

we need to get to the bottom of this very perplexing problem.