This question often arises among owners of cars with not the most modern and “thoughtful” automatic transmissions. You can manually switch to an upshift or, on the contrary, downshift while driving without negative consequences.
Moreover, depending on the road situation, sometimes it is even recommended to do this. For example, by switching to a lower gear, you can effectively brake with the engine. At the same time, it will be possible to change gears on an “automatic” while driving only within certain limits – the car’s electronics simply will not turn on a gear that is too low or high. Otherwise, the engine speed will go out of the operating range.
How to use the automatic transmission when stopping and parking?
Everything is simple here too. The algorithm will be as follows:
- stop the vehicle;
- Without releasing the brake pedal, turn on the parking brake – “handbrake”;
- enable Parking mode;
- take your foot off the brake;
- turn off the ignition.
When parking on a level surface, the parking brake can be neglected, this is allowed. It is enough to leave the car in Parking mode. But on a slope, using the handbrake is highly desirable. In this way, you will not only protect the transmission from excess gravitational load (even if it is static). There is always a risk that the car will roll spontaneously: the equipment (in this case, the lock) sometimes fails. And then, along with the body elements, you will have to repair the transmission.