Is there even a first gear on the auto selector? My Civic had D, 3, and 2 on it, no 1st gear. My CX-7 has manumatic mode(some call it sport shift mode) where I can shift it manually from 1st to 6th and the car will NOT allow me to select a lower gear than possible for the speed I’m traveling at. Likewise, I can’t simply put it in 6th gear at 15mph, it usually goes into 6th around 40mph. I’ll accelerate up to 4th gear then shift it twice into 6th when I know I’m gonna be traveling at 40mph+ for more than a few minutes.
You’re darn lucky it didn’t downshift to 1st gear!!!
Yeah, I’m starting to suspect the same thing. Especially since the OP hasn’t written back.
I downshift every time I had downhill, sometimes to 1st gear if the situation calls for it. But like all things in life, this advise can be a little more refined
Maybe the OP is too embarassed over doing something like this to come back and yes, people are evem less savvy than this.
I wonder if problems develop with this vehicle if the OP is going to have amnesia about this when standing at the service counter wondering aloud why the car has premature problems and eagerly asking if warranty will cover it…
Actually this OP has been here a whole bunch of times asking very basic kinds of questions, like “do RWD cars have CV joints?” and others I can’t recall. It doesn’t necessarily mean this wasn’t a joke, but the past posts have been relatively frequent and indicate lots of deficits in very basic knowledge.
Would you even be able to ram it into 1st on a manual tranny?
This might be where paperclip-9 got the idea.
I know this is an off the wall remark, but…
Way back in the day, a piratical friend of mine had an XKE, 12 banger that went from zero to 45 in 1st, and way over 70 in 2nd. I was and still am amazed at the way that car could jump, getting scratch at 45 when shifting to 2nd. I have no idea what would have happened if he had shifted down to 1st at 70, but I made him slow down when he hit 120 in third.
Yes you could with enough force. But, synchorzizer would really take a beating. Also the clutch disc would likely fly apart saving the engine itself if the clutch were reengaged.
An OP did that with a Mustang saying “Hey watch listen to this” as he shifted into first at 75 mph. The whine was out of sight and so was the clutch disc.
No.
transman
Yeah. Honda's and their low gears.. *shakes head*. My 1972 Fleetwood would hit 50 in 1st (at 4000RPM redline) and 75 in second. So downshifting it at 70 would have only revved it to 5600RPM. My 1985 Celebrity, 50@5000 in first and 75@5000 in second. My 2000 Buick Regal would redline (6000 RPM) at 50-55 in 1st (although in actuality, it shifts to second at more like 40 at full throttle since the torque peak is below redline, and like 5 or 10MPH otherwise), it is very conservative in manually shifting down to 1st though, only permitting it below about 25MPH.
But yeah, to the person who said you'd probably be doing 15,000 RPM at 70, I would guess it would may be closer to 20,000 RPM. Well, in theory.
But, yeah, at any given speed you should only be able to downshift 1 to 2 gears, and that's all the engine breaking you're gonna get. You should downshift down mountain grade to save the brakes from overheating.