Honda Car Forum

The transmission has lock-up clutches. Once it reaches cruising speed in
any of the "D" gears, the clutches engage, so at a constant speed, you see
no movement in the tach. As it starts bogging down climbing a steep hill,
it will first release the lock-up clutch for more power. That is what is
happening when you see a jump in the tach that you see without an attendant
downshift. If it still can't maintain speed, then it will downshift.

On 8/4/03 10:50 AM, in article
71ebe3a9.0308040750.4edd8629@posting.google.com, "Victor Purinton"
<victor1008@attbi.com> wrote:

> Hi folks
>
> I'm just curious ... this past weekend I was cruising in Maine in my
> 2000 TL, and I had the speedo locked at 80 mph. As the car went up
> and down hills, the tach stayed at the same value (around 2200 rpm).
> Why doesn't the engine rev up when I go up a hill? (If the hill is
> real steep, the tach does jump, even though the tranny is not
> downshifting!) I don't know much engine technology, so my first
> assumption was something to do with VTEC, but I thought VTEC only
> kicked in at high revs. So I'm stumped.
>
> As an aside, 2200 rmp is amazingly low for 80 mph. I would assume
> that other TLs do the exact same thing, but just out of curiousity,
> does anyone want to take your car out and confirm that?
>
> Cheers!
> Victor