Is quickly shifting automatic car in manual mode is bad?
 

Hi guys,
newbie question here:

Let's say Im on 3k rpm in manual mode of an automatic car, and need to quickly gain tourqe, so i need to downshift 2 gears to be at around 6k rpm.

I can quickly achieve this by double press on downshit on the steering wheel shifters.

My question is - is it bad for the transmission to do it on regular basis? Are the gears actually changed (mechanically) during the middle downshift - which i assume will impact transmission wear time, or the gears are changed only after the 2nd downshift so mechanically there won't be any difference between 2 downshifts and 1?

If it does, i'd like to hear how automatic owners here handle cases where sudden acceleration is required?


Thanks

It was built for this, don't worry about it

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The auto is set up so it won't help you to break things.

It won't shift down far enough to over-rev the engine.
You'll need a manual for dumb stuff like that.

If it feels and sounds like the gears are changed twice then they are. If not, then it skipped a gear. Either way, it will be fine, I highly doubt the transmission will let you do anything to break it.

They buy a different car - :D

As far as I can tell you're fine to down/upshift whenever depending on which arrow(s) is visible next to the gear you're in. I'll admit though I get a little nervous that something will go wrong when I downshift and my car RPM jumps dramatically

... That's supposed to happen....

@uchiha, has others have said, the transmission and its software are designed for you to do this. I have over 170K miles on my AT and have done this many, many times, both in automatic and manual modes. I would imagine I've done it at least once in every 50 miles the car has been driven, which would be 3,400 times, but that is an estimate. I have no issues to date.

I've also dropped it down 3 gears on occasion.

I dunno about some of these kids these days

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it's fine!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_tuneup

If you left the car in auto and suddenly floored it wouldn't it downshift a couple of gears anyway? Gearboxs are designed to change gears :iono:

Honestly, I find that this AT really does most of what I want and I don’t feel the need to go into manual as much. It holds gears on turns, so as not to shift and disrupt the car, but other than shifting a bit too fast on a straight, it’s not bad. I have done some runs on a local mountain road and going manual is only slightly better than AT. Sometimes I don’t use manual for weeks, but I am lazy. It’s no PDK but for a slush box it works well.

Well yea but with my headers and exhaust when the car suddenly goes from 2k to 7k RPM it's rather loud and unexpected

Yes, but it is much faster if you go do it with the paddles even in AT mode, than wait for the computer to interpret you flooring it.