Quote:
Originally Posted by paulca
The advantage of manual transmission is you have these choices and are the one in control. Can you even put an auto into neutral while travelling?
On the hills thing, my route to work goes up over some hills. Starts from sea level, ends up about 500 foot altitude and then back down to sea level. The way into the city ends with a large hill that drops about 400 feet in half a mile. To maintain 60mph down it I have to select 3rd! 4th and the car still accelerates at idle past 60mph. Coasting down it riding the brakes and they start to fade by the bottom and are probably overheating. Lots of quarry/gravel lorries go down it, they slow to under 30mph and ride the brakes down it, leaves a lovely smell of brake pads and ozone behind them.
Coming the other way, if you get a clean run up the hill in 2nd and 3rd you can accelerate up beyond 60 on full throttle, but it makes your ears pop like taking off in a plane! Great fun though. Even more fun overtaking people up it. Then the downhills are gradual and progressive with at least one mile long section where you can freewheel stably at 60mph for over a mile. Great watching the Avg. MPG rising.
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OF course you can put an auto into neutral! Just push the gear selector to N lol
In extreme cases like yours I'd probably go to third or 4th. But how high are you revving in third going down the hill? I wouldn't want to stay at 7000rpm for extended periods of time without proper cooling of the cylinder. I'm not sure how the ECU works, but the fuel cools the cylinders, if there's no more fuel at 7000 than say 3000, I suppose you could potentially run into problems long term