Honda Car Forum

Several comments. New car - 10 days in use so far.

The transmission shifts smoothly and normally cannot be felt
unless briskly accelerating. Since the engine is still so new, I'm
not pushing the car very much at this point, but upshifts and
downshifts are pretty smooth. If I drive it as a sedan around town,
you can't feel it shift.

When cruising at 60 mph, the trans is in OD and the engine only
turning 2000 rpm. That's pretty steep. When you push down gently on
the accelerator in this situation, the car tries to stay in OD and
acceleration is modest, especially if you are only going 40 or so
to begin with. A stronger push almost always results in a 2 gear
downshift and the engine builds up rpm and you take off. I have yet
to figure out how to get it to only shift down one gear, but I expect
I'll get a better feel for it over time.

I have to agree that the drive by wire gas pedal has more resistance
than my other cars, but part of this seems to be coming from the
mental impression that the car is "unresponsive" to very small pedal
inputs. This is actually true, since it tries to stay in OD. I'm
sure they are trying to improve gas mileage from this. It's too early
for me to see if this impression will go away as the car loosens up a
bit and the computer "learns" how I drive.

Of course, the sport shift is great and the car can really fly when
you want to drive that way!

Paul

Ramapo <ramapo@youbetyourass.com> wrote in
news:cp9vv0d48adfmkdjue7fq3nqq84fk3svcj@4ax.com:


> I have to agree that the drive by wire gas pedal has more resistance
> than my other cars, but part of this seems to be coming from the
> mental impression that the car is "unresponsive" to very small pedal
> inputs. This is actually true, since it tries to stay in OD. I'm
> sure they are trying to improve gas mileage from this.



Mostly emissions. They're trying to (HAVE to) take control away from you in
order to satisfy ever-tightening government emissions regulations.

Emissions are down 99.9% from the uncontrolled days, and they want even
more. It's to the point now where a pint of gasoline spilled on the ground
will emit more hydrocarbons than a new car will in 100,000 miles of
driving. It's getting nuts.

Nobody I've read, talked or listened to likes drive-by-wire.


--
TeGGeR®

The Unofficial Honda/Acura FAQ
www.tegger.com/hondafaq/

TeGGer® wrote:
>
> Nobody I've read, talked or listened to likes drive-by-wire.
>
>

You can't say that any more :-)

I like it. Or perhaps more accurately, I don't dislike it. It's not
something I've ever noticed.

I can't tell any difference whatsoever compared to all of the other cars
I've driven. Maybe it has to do with the difference between stick and
auto; I have the 6MT.

Waiving the right to remain silent, "TeGGer®" <tegger@istop.c0m> wrote:

> Nobody I've read, talked or listened to likes drive-by-wire.

The drive-by-wire in my new 2005 Honda Pilot SUV feels like direct link. I
agree with Ramapo about the Acura TL, it's sluggish and seems to require a
lot of pedal pressure to maintain freeway speeds.

--
Larry J. - Remove spamtrap in ALLCAPS to e-mail

"If you take out the killings, Washington actually
has a very low crime rate."
- Marion Barry, mayor of Washington, D.C.

On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 16:23:14 GMT, Ramapo <ramapo@youbetyourass.com>
wrote:
>When cruising at 60 mph, the trans is in OD and the engine only
>turning 2000 rpm. That's pretty steep. When you push down gently on
>the accelerator in this situation, the car tries to stay in OD and
>acceleration is modest, especially if you are only going 40 or so
>to begin with. A stronger push almost always results in a 2 gear
>downshift and the engine builds up rpm and you take off. I have yet
>to figure out how to get it to only shift down one gear, but I expect
>I'll get a better feel for it over time.

Here's how - have the tranny flushed.

I know this behavior, my 1999 CL 3.0 did it, too. And like you, I
thought for the longest time this was a programmed behavior, something
about the computers and emissions control. It's not. At 30k miles
the dealer changed (there's no official "flush") the tranny fluid.
For the next few weeks, the shift behaved as you'd like,
single-downshifts were fast and simple. Then it slowly deteriorated
again.

Welcome to Honda automatic transmissions.

My 2004 Accord I4 tranny started out correct, and there is no recall
listed for the tranny (never was on the CL, either), and it's a
totally different model from the old Acura - 5 speed rather then 4 -
but sadly, it is slowly slipping into the same sticky, sluggish
malfunctioning behavior as the others.


J.