[Sutripta]

Originally Posted by blackasta

Do not try to move between any gear other than D<->N when the car is moving. It can result in huge transmission damage.

What? And why?

Regards
Sutripta

[blackasta]

Originally Posted by Sutripta

What? And why?

Regards
Sutripta

situation 1 - suddenly shifting to R from D. Picked this up from the internet -

'If the car is a rear wheel, it should compression lock the rear wheels, and jam up the gearbox through stress, therefore locking the flywheel, and stalling the engine.

Although you might not notice damage, there has been some SERIOUS damage done to the drive-line of the car, anything from loosening bolts to shearing heads off bolts, twisting and cracking tail shafts, to fracturing internal gearbox bearings, etc.

It might drive alright afterwards, but I would be seriously looking to 'move the car on' after doing something like that.

In a front wheel drive, OMFG it would be dangerous, locking the front wheels at any speed and having the back of the car flapping around like a loose bit of string would be killer at anything about 45km/h, and loosing driving wheels AND steering would be panic stations and new underwear time for me personally.'

from : http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/951675

situation 2 - suddenly shifting from D to 2 or L - this is normally taken care of in newer cars. The engine DOES NOT overrev and hit the red line at that speed, but only when the speed comes down does the transmission shift to the selected gear.

[pratim]

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno

1) While on the subject of AT-creep, why do AT cars have this creep at all ? In AT cars, in D or R, the car moves forward/backward without accelerator input aka AT-creep. Why is it like this ? Instead, why not require pressing the accelerator to move, like it is in auto-gear 2-wheelers ? Also, if the creep was not there, there would be no need for the N slot - 1 slot less.

2) Also, could the order of the gears in AT cars be done better than it is now ? For eg, in our car it is P -> R -> N -> D -> D3 -> 2 -> L

So I start the car in P and then need to slot to D. But for this I have to go via R and the moment you slot in R, you can feel the Reverse gear engaging + if you dont have the brake depressed, the car can move backwards due to the AT-creep. Same goes when I am parking the car and while moving from D to P, I again have to go via R, even if I have no intention to reverse.

Instead, could not the gear order be like R -> P -> N -> D ->D3 ->2 -> L ?
This would also ensure that Reverse is never slotted unintentionally and is used only when we want to reverse.

I am not an expert on these things, but here is what I can say from my 1+ years of driving experience of an automatic car:

1. The engine keeps running in the range 1000-1500 rpm at idle when turned on. The moment you select D, the torque converter engages the transmission to the engine. So, this "engagement" causes the car to move ahead (assuming you are in D) at a low speed on a flat ground without incline. Some MT cars (at least in palio), if you release the clutch slowly after engaging 1st gear, the car slowly moves ahead.

2. One is not supposed to be in P for long, while engine is running. A brief period (e.g. few seconds ) is okay, but being in P while engine running causes the parking pawl to come under stress and wear & tear of that increases. P is for parking and it is better to use P when engine is off.

While parking the car, bring the shift lever to N from D/R (as is the situation) with the foot brake depressed. Turn off the engine. Engage the handbrake and move the shift lever to P.
While starting the car, first bring the shift lever to N from P and crank the engine. Then depress the foot brake pedal, disengage the hand brake and move to R or D as the situation demands.

I got to know this by bit of researching on the net, by talking the SAs, and by reading owner's manual. If you follow these, you will start liking P-R-N-D positioning.

BTW, You need to depress the shift lock button to move in/out of P.

Cheers
Pratim

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by pratim

1. The engine keeps running in the range 1000-1500 rpm at idle when turned on. The moment you select D, the torque converter engages the transmission to the engine. So, this "engagement" causes the car to move ahead at a low speed on a flat ground without incline.

So, if idling rpm is reduced so that it is not enough to move the car, this problem should be solved, right ? Or is it not so simple ? BTW, idling rpms is more like 700-1000 in the cars I have used. 1500 seems a bit too high to me. What speed does your ANHC idle at ?

Originally Posted by pratim

Some MT cars (at least in palio), if you release the clutch slowly after engaging 1st gear, the car slowly moves ahead.

I think most cars do this. However, the movement starts only when clutch is released. It won't move when clutch is pressed after engaging gear, which is the kind of scenario I am expecting in AT cars when D is engaged and no A-input.

Originally Posted by pratim

2. While parking the car, bring the shift lever to N from D/R (as is the situation) with the foot brake depressed. Turn off the engine. Engage the handbrake and move the shift lever to P.
While starting the car, first bring the shift lever to N from P and crank the engine. Then depress the foot brake pedal, disengage the hand brake and move to R or D as the situation demands. If you follow these, you will start liking P-R-N-D positioning.

This method sounds interesting - will try to follow this. However, this is at best a workaround we could do while living with the current gear-order.

If the R were at one end of the order, this could be done simpler as below :

While parking the car, do D->N->P (or R->P) with the foot brake depressed. Turn off the engine.

While starting the car, crank the engine with footbrake applied and do P->N->D or P->R and move on.

Simple, isn't it ?

[sathyaprakash]

Hill-assist is not when car is parked. Assume you are driving up an incline and at the top there is a traffic signal, with couple cars waiting. You stop behind them and other cars join the line behind you. Now when the light turns green, you would not want your car to rollback and hit the car behind. This is where hill-assist comes in. For minor inclines, the &quot;AT-creep&quot; ensures you don't rollback. But for serious inclines, hill-assist would help avoid the car rolling back. I got this info by googling &quot;hill-lock&quot;.

Its very ridiculous i have not once in my one and half years encountered this situation when i was travelling to kodaikannal last summer or while crossing overbridge in the city in AT you can move from P to R or D only by pressing the brake and this takes care of the movement of the vehicle then how do you find the vehicle will move backwards? I suspect you are driving the vehicle in a wrong style.</p>

[Dippy]

@SupremeBaleno: An automatic car only idles at 1000rpm at the first start. After a couple of minutes idling, it settles down at around 600-700rpm. A good practice is to let the car idle for atleast a minute or two when you start it in the morning. That way the AT gearoil smoothly flows into the box and the tranny is nicel warmed up to give you proper shifts. Note that the AT gear oil is the key to your box running smoothly.

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by sathyaprakash

Its very ridiculous i have not once in my one and half years encountered this situation when i was travelling to kodaikannal last summer or while crossing overbridge in the city in AT

My driving has been minimal with an AT and mostly in the plains - so I also never encountered this. But then, if there is a solution (hill assist in this case), I would think there would have been a problem to solve in the 1st place.

Originally Posted by sathyaprakash

you can move from P to R or D only by pressing the brake and this takes care of the movement of the vehicle then how do you find the vehicle will move backwards? I suspect you are driving the vehicle in a wrong style.

How about being in D while stopped on an incline with a foot on the brake ? And as soon as the vehicle in front of me starts moving, I take foot off the brake. Depending on how steep the incline is, if I dont immediately give accelerator-input, the car could either creep up (small incline) or rollback (steep incline). And I guess this is where hill-assist comes in.

Originally Posted by Dippy

Note that the AT gear oil is the key to your box running smoothly.

Dippy, the manual says the gear-oil is to be changed at 1.65lakh kms. What about the AT cars you have used ? At what intervals did you change gear oil ?

[pratim]

SupremeBaleno,

Let me try to answer the questions you had to the best of my knowledge

1. My car idles at around 1200-1500 rpm after a cold start. However, after the engine is warmed up, it is in between 800-1000 rpm, but below 1000 rpm. I have not measured exactly, so given ranges.

2. In automatic cars, the moment D/R/S/D1/D2 etc is selected, the car is ready to move and starts moving, since transmission in engaged to the motor.
In manual transmission cars, if 1st gear is engaged, but clutch is depressed, engine is disconnected from transmission. So, no movement. Slowly release the clutch, the car starts moving, even without pressing the acclerator pedal.
Unlike a MT car, in an AT car, there's no way to disengage the engine from transmission other than putting the shift stick into N. This has it's advantages, as well as disadvantages if one is not careful.

3. About sequencing, cosider following situation that we come across very often: if you need to move to R, say from D while engine is on, in the current sequencing you dont have to go through P. It only goes through N, which is similar to MT cars. The recomended way is briefly halt the car and then pass through the N and then go to R to engage the reverse gear. That's all I can think of, and honestly, I dont know the actual technical reasons, if there are any.

And congratulations on the A-Star automatic! Nice colour choice. Keep us updated about your experieces abt it.

-Pratim

[Sutripta]

Originally Posted by blackasta

situation 1 - suddenly shifting to R from D. Picked this up from the internet -

......
from : http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/951675

situation 2 - suddenly shifting from D to 2 or L - this is normally taken care of in newer cars. The engine DOES NOT overrev and hit the red line at that speed, but only when the speed comes down does the transmission shift to the selected gear.

Not to shift from R<->D at speed is a no brainer. Does not need to be corroborated by links to vague sites. But what about D-3-2-1? With regard to transmission damage, not engine damage.

Regards
Sutripta

[supremeBaleno]

In a week, the A-Star would be 1-month old and due for the 1st service. Was surprised to see that no engine-oil change at 1st service - the 1st oil/filter change is only at 10K kms (3rd service).

Anyway, the odo is reading close to 700kms. We could not do the Wayanad trip since wifey could not manage leave. Else 1000kms would have been easily done by now. We still did quite some driving around - Ranny, Pathanamthitta, Adoor, Parakode, Padappakkara (Sundarateeram - nice scenic place), Thirumullavaram, Neendakara, Kozhenchery etc.


The A-Star parked (or rather obstructed by a canoe) at the Thirumullavaram(Kollam) beach :


Most of the driving being done by wifey and FIL so that they get comfy with the car, which they are now. One the few occasions I got to drive, I found the car a breeze to drive, with the left leg resting easy without any strain. Automatics sure seem fun, though occasionally (while overtaking for eg.), my hand reaches for the gear-lever to downshift and race forward. The i10-AT with its bigger engine would be better here, I would think.

FE update :
I had done a full tank immediately after getting the car, assuming I would be able to get mileage figures when I refill during the Wayanad trip. But since that did not happen, I was wondering how to check FE. And that is when the LowFuelIndicator (LFI) came to the rescue.

There is no light that comes up indicating LowFuel. Just that in the digital fuel-gauge comprising 10 blocks (when tank is full), the bottom-most block (close to E) starts blinking indicating that we need to refuel. I kept a close watch on the gauge and the moment it started blinking, set the tripmeter to 0. Filled up 10litres and made a note of when the blinking came up next, which was at 120kms - approx 12kmpl. This was during our Ranny trip, with hilly roads, wifey driving, a/c always on etc.

I get 12kmpl in Chennai with my Baleno. So, given that traffic is much lesser in our part of Kerala, I hope the A_Star stabilises at 14-15kmpl or so.

I know that this is not really a reliable way to measure FE, but plan to do few more iterations and get the average of all tries, to get an approx. idea of the FE. And after the 1st service, will do a full-tank to full-tank check too, just to confirm.

Like with analog fuel-gauges, the digital one also does not seem linear. When LFI comes up, on filling 10litres, 4 blocks fill up in the guage. 1st block goes off after 43kms, 2nd one after 25kms, 3rd one after 40 kms and LFI comes up after 12kms.

Would be good to know how many kms car will run once LFI comes up. Yesterday while returning from Chengannur, LFI came up just after we drove past a fuel-pump. I thought we will fuel up at the next pump, but the route we took was through the countryside and so no gas-stations anywhere for the next 12kms till we reached Mavelikara. I was bit tensed all through the drive, worried the car will stop due to lack of petrol.

Another curious thing was a small beep/tone that sounded from the dashboard after we drove some 10kms on LFI. We had no idea what it meant - was it some kind of a "Hey fill fuel fast - you are running on empty" warning ?

[pgsagar]

We have so many i10 Auto threads but only one A Star Auto thread? Why is A Star so unwanted? In my opinion it looks better than i10 and costs considerably less. And I am sure A Star will be nearly as good. Or, is it, Supremebaleno? S'Baleno, can A Star climb a 30 degree parking ramp in "D" mode, starting at the base of the ramp? Or, does one has to go to 2 or L? And how is acceleration? Linear and seamless or jerky ( because of ratio gap between 2nd and 3rd )? Please share your experience with us.

[supremeBaleno]

^^^
Your 1st question would be best answered by MSIL. For people to buy A*-ATs, MSIL needs to 'sell' them, which is not the case. They launch it with much fanfare, but when you go to buy it, the waiting period is 3 - 6 months. Who will wait for that long for a car today (exceptions being Swift/Dzire) ? We were quoted 25 days, but finally took 2.5months to get the car.

Our A*-AT was the 1st one sold by that dealer. Since then, they have 5 bookings, which IMO is a big deal for a car that sells just 3K in total a month (AT & MT). But I doubt the 5 guys will wait 5-6 months to get the car, resulting in booking cancellation.

I have not tried the ramp climb yet - though had planned to do it during X'mas. From my experience, the acceleration seemed linear. I could make out the gear-shifts happening, but wifey/FIL were oblivious to the change.

BTW, I drove our Swift after a long gap of 13 days of using only the A-Star and managed to stall the engine atleast 3 times during a 2km run. Reason being that I would not use the left leg at all and for slowing down would just brake without depressing the clutch a la AT-style.

[pgsagar]

Looks like you are enjoying every bit of it. We are also toying with the idea of buying a small AT. There are only two in the market right now-- i10 and A*. But there is a huge yawning price gap between the two. Now, if A* performance is almost same as i10's, then I for one wouldn't mind waiting. I know in some other areas like features and fit and finish, i10 will be ahead of A* but somehow on-road price of 6 lakhs for a hatch is too much fro me to digest. S'Baleno, how is upshift from 2nd to 3rd--- linear or jerky? Can it cruise comfortably at 120 on highways?

[hellmet]

I hate Maruti for not giving us this AT car before. It would have been just another 40-50K above my Chevy Beat but would have brought some peace of mind from this gear business. I just hate using all my limbs for driving :(
Nevertheless, I'm liking my experience with the Beat. Solid car!

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by pgsagar

Looks like you are enjoying every bit of it. We are also toying with the idea of buying a small AT. There are only two in the market right now-- i10 and A*. But there is a huge yawning price gap between the two. Now, if A* performance is almost same as i10's, then I for one wouldn't mind waiting. I know in some other areas like features and fit and finish, i10 will be ahead of A* but somehow on-road price of 6 lakhs for a hatch is too much fro me to digest. S'Baleno, how is upshift from 2nd to 3rd--- linear or jerky? Can it cruise comfortably at 120 on highways?

Are you sure about i10-AT being priced way higher than A*-AT? I remember reading here that it was at most 20K costlier, which I would not think is a big deal given that it has a bigger engine (which is a plus) and maybe better interiors.

I have driven i10 only in MT avatar - not sure about AT. But I would guess it has a better performance than A* due to the higher cc engine.

I did not notice any jerkiness in moving from 2nd to 3rd. Regarding cruising at 120, IIRC ajmat mentioned in his review that it can cruise at that speed comfortably. And since it has better handling than i10, it would feel more planted at high speeds.

Since our car is in run-in period, the max we have done is 70-80 kmph. And I doubt the car will ever be used at 3-digit speeds, unless driven by me. Reason being that my FIL believes 40kmph is the max speed one should ever do, and that too only on highways. My wife would go to 60kmph maybe, but that would be it.

For us, the primary concern was that FIL and wifey should be comfy enough to drive on their own. And the A*-AT has helped achieve that. Wifey took the car to her office on her own on 4th Jan - which was a great milestone, given that I have been trying to reach this goal for years using our M800, Swift etc. FIL achieved this a week or so earlier. I doubt they would have made it so quickly with a MT car.

Originally Posted by hellmet

I hate Maruti for not giving us this AT car before. It would have been just another 40-50K above my Chevy Beat but would have brought some peace of mind from this gear business. I just hate using all my limbs for driving :(

ATs surely are fun. More so on slopes where you need not fear the car sliding backward/forward. For eg. the road in front of my inlaws home forks into 2, with one of them dipping to a slope of around 30deg or so. With the Swift, I would go midway this slope and then reverse into the other one with some quick pedal play - which would be tough for FIL / wifey. With the AT, I went midway into the slope, braked and engaged Reverse. Took foot off brake and car stayed put even without accelerator input - did not slide forward due to the reverse creep balancing gravitational pull.

I think the time for ATs has come in India with rising income and people ready to pay extra for convenience. MSIL and others need to cater to this segment. I see atleast 2 Santro-ATs and 1 i10-AT in our office parking lot.