TridentTested
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I discovered something new yesterday; new for me, maybe it's been discussed before.
It was a day pounding autoroutes and because of the high Gendarme presence I was just plodding along with the cruise set. The only fun was leaving the toll booths - they haven't made acceleration illegal, yet.
One was particularly fun. After the Péage all lanes merged into one and turned a tight 270° corkscrew up and over the toll booths. I'd never seen one like this before. It was nominally 50 kph but knowing they couldn't radar-trap on a curve like that I was happy to give it some beans.
The car was in auto and after the usual change up point I lifted off slightly to let it change into third but it wouldn't. It held onto second and headed for the redline.
The corner was over before I thought to try it in manual.
There must be an accelerometer onboard to prevent gear changes over a certain lateral-g. These cars are intriguingly complex.
Speaking of auto, I've been driving the car mostly in auto these days. I vaguely remember reading that auto mode slurs the changes more and puts more wear on the clutch. Thus I've mostly driven it in manual. Others have contradicted this and the last time I was at Bill McGraths I asked Vince if he knew anything about it. As far as he knows it changes gear in exactly the same way whether in auto or manual. As he said to me 'it's there to use, why not use it?'.
So, armed with my newly discovered auto mode I've been using it a lot.
It's like I found with my old Alfa 156 Selespeed: the 'city' mode was completely mis-named. Auto (or 'city' in Alfa-speak) is ideal for country roads and motorways. Manual, ironically, is more useful for the city where you can see whether the queue ahead is likely to move or not and can be in the appropriate gear for it. The gearbox can't see this and often ends up slipping the clutch in 2nd when 1st, fully engaged, would have been better.
Likewise I've found auto to be AMAZING for overtaking. In manual I would flick down one or two gears, I would wait for the clutch to be fully engaged then I would open the throttle. All this takes time. In auto I just squeeze the throttle and the 'box kicks-down in a blink and the increase in speed is instant.
Great fun.
It was a day pounding autoroutes and because of the high Gendarme presence I was just plodding along with the cruise set. The only fun was leaving the toll booths - they haven't made acceleration illegal, yet.
One was particularly fun. After the Péage all lanes merged into one and turned a tight 270° corkscrew up and over the toll booths. I'd never seen one like this before. It was nominally 50 kph but knowing they couldn't radar-trap on a curve like that I was happy to give it some beans.
The car was in auto and after the usual change up point I lifted off slightly to let it change into third but it wouldn't. It held onto second and headed for the redline.
The corner was over before I thought to try it in manual.
There must be an accelerometer onboard to prevent gear changes over a certain lateral-g. These cars are intriguingly complex.
Speaking of auto, I've been driving the car mostly in auto these days. I vaguely remember reading that auto mode slurs the changes more and puts more wear on the clutch. Thus I've mostly driven it in manual. Others have contradicted this and the last time I was at Bill McGraths I asked Vince if he knew anything about it. As far as he knows it changes gear in exactly the same way whether in auto or manual. As he said to me 'it's there to use, why not use it?'.
So, armed with my newly discovered auto mode I've been using it a lot.
It's like I found with my old Alfa 156 Selespeed: the 'city' mode was completely mis-named. Auto (or 'city' in Alfa-speak) is ideal for country roads and motorways. Manual, ironically, is more useful for the city where you can see whether the queue ahead is likely to move or not and can be in the appropriate gear for it. The gearbox can't see this and often ends up slipping the clutch in 2nd when 1st, fully engaged, would have been better.
Likewise I've found auto to be AMAZING for overtaking. In manual I would flick down one or two gears, I would wait for the clutch to be fully engaged then I would open the throttle. All this takes time. In auto I just squeeze the throttle and the 'box kicks-down in a blink and the increase in speed is instant.
Great fun.