I have always driven manual transmissions. My 2003 GX470 is only the second vehicle I've purchased that's an automatic. So naturally I still like to down shift when coming to a stop. Does anyone else do this? Do you think it affects the life of the transmission? I only down shift when the RPM's are below 1500. I actually like the way the shifter works. It's smooth and easy. No quite a manual but I like it better than any paddle shifter I've ever used. I think it's the feel of shifting similarly to an actual manual transmission. What are your thoughts?

 

I've always just stuck this one in D and driven it, the auto is pretty good compared to most. When I had my E55 AMG I would manually shift it as it was truly a terrible auto, the gearing was all wrong, it was built to run at high speeds, so in town it was always 2-3 gears to high to put power down when you mashed the pedal. 2nd gear was good to 110km/h, so in a 60 zone when the car was in 4th...it wasn't built for what I was using it for. Even then I'd just use the shifter to limit the highest gear it could shift to, never to slow the car down.

I would imagine using the auto trans in place of your brakes would accelerate wear, and brakes are cheap in comparison.

 

The auto will automatically downshift as you slow. You should barely feel it - if it's really noticeable, have the rear driveshaft spline joint checked for wear.

The thing I have noticed is that when you accelerate down a hill then hold the accelerator pedal it will hold the gear (usually 4th) and not upshift until later.

I have manually selected 1st & 2nd when in crawling rush-hour traffic up a steep (10% grade) hill here in Austin. I found that it would upshift too soon, or hunt for a gear, and that was annoying.

Chip H.

 

The way that the GX 5-speed works is one of my favorite things about the truck. The way the throttle modulates and the transmission is always near-instantly in the right gear, shifts at the right time, etc, is just perfect. (And brake modulation is also perfect, which goes along with throttle and transmission to make for a great-driving truck.) I seriously doubt that the type of downshifting that you mention, at 1500 RPM, would measurably shorten the transmission life, but I don't have a hard evidence to substantiate that.

IanB2, I agree about the MB automatic transmissions from a few years ago. That's one of the reasons I couldn't bring myself to buy a -55 or -63 vehicle even though I liked a lot of things about them. I had a CLK 430 which shifted about the same way as the performance versions I drove. The procedure, as I recall, for manual shifting was:
1. Fill out a form requesting an up-shift
2. Mail it via snail-mail to MB USA
3. Wait for the gear change to happen
At least that's how I recall it working...

 

MB's transmissions haven't changed, unfortunately. Well, the shift speed is crisp and fast, the low speed performance of the transmission in mine is frustrating, to say the least.

 

Mine was a '99, the year before they added steering wheel mounted shift buttons, making it even more frustrating if you can imagine! The best you could do is use the console shifter to limit the gear it could upshift to. Slowest high HP car I've ever driven under real world driving conditions. From a dig it was fine, but from a roll it was garbage.