I have to agree with leaving it off in the city. There is a Ford site
that recommends that you do so in their Explorers, and I heard the same
thing from the Ford dealer service guys. When you are driving slow, and
you are in OD, you are making the transmission do the work instead of
the motor. All trannies should work 100% fine in 1:1 (non-OD) - almost
every car pre-80s did that. OD was installed to let the motor drop a
few hundred RPM when you are coasting on the highway. Doing a constant
highway speed requires only minimal horsepower and is therefore safe to
let the transmission rev a little more. If you hit the gas, the tranny
should drop to non-OD almost immediately.
As for saying you should drive with the idiot lights off...thats flat
out wrong too. The OD indicator (which is actually a non-OD indicator)
is there to show you that the car isnt in the same state that it was
when you started it. It isnt a warning light at all. It is a reminder
that you might want to kick it back on when it is needed.
City MPG is so bad anyway, so keeping it off isnt going to cost you gas
money. All it does is save wear and tear on your car. Making your
truck go down the road is a huge transfer of energy...one that the motor
is built to take. The tranny is only supposed to transmit the energy
rearward, and if you leave it in OD, you are asking it to do the work
instead of the motor. The motor is supposed to do the work...thats why
everything is so heavy duty in an engine. After all, do you guys change
your tranny fluid every 3000 miles??
Leave the OD off in the city and save yourself the wear and tear!!!
...Kevin
93 318 CC, hardly every in OD, 100K miles and going strong
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 11:57:40 EDT