Hi everyone,

I have a 350, and what I'm about to ask will be very noob, so please bear with me. Since I don't know how to drive a stick, I don't have the concepts required to use the paddle shifter. I heard it can prevent unnecessary upshift/down shift, so you get more control of your car. And that when cruising at high speed (~70mph), manually down shift will give you a little extra acceleration when you hit the gas.

I tried to mess with it yesterday, but did not work. Any insights?

Thanks

 

The paddles on the 2IS models are not "true" paddle shifters...they do not shift whenever you want it too. They are "high gear limiters". For example, if you are at a stop light on a 45 mph road in "S" mode. You can select 4th gear using the paddles or toggling the shifter up; that will have set you high-gear. Light turns green, you accelerate through the gears as normal until you hit 4th gear. Assuming you keep traveling on that road for a good distance enough to get to speed, you will reach 4th gear...no higher. Your motor will just keep reving up in that gear until it reaches red line, unless you select the next highest gear.

Hope that helps!

 

Oh I see I see what you're saying. But how does limiting your high gear benefit you?

 

Because it's an automatic, the transmission is always looking to shift to the gear that will put the least amount of stress on it, that and they are designed to get great MPGs. So if you want to go fast, limiting when the transmission can shift to higher gears let's you access your power band through say 1st to 4th gear. Think of it this way if your on the highway cruising in 4th it's going to be a lot easier to accelerate than cruising in 5th or 6th. 5th and 6th are mostly cruising speed gears, so it's harder to get going quick using those. Hope this helps!

Also would like to put out there if people drove with the paddle shifters only for a week I think we would finally stop getting all the haters hatin on em. You can control when the car shifts yes not EXACTLY but pretty darn close (for me within a second at the most) if you learn how to use them right... Coming from a manual helps.

 

You can use it to force the car to downshift by locking out the higher gears which seems more practical... otherwise, the paddle shifters are pretty much useless in terms of having full control of your shifts.

 

I used my paddle shifters in the mountains Sunday.

How did it not work? Did you push the gear lever to S mode?

 

Yah, but just the RPM rev'd up and MPH wasn't going up ...

 

Gotta hit the gas too, downshifting without hitting the gas will cause you to slow down.

 

^ Yeah I did

 

At that point it was time to upshift. Just take it easy and get familiar with the it. You'll get the hang of it.

 

By limiting what gear your in, the car will allow you accelerate up to redline.

 

Try doing it in 3rd gear where you may notice it more.

 

Practice more! I only use the S mode to engine brake to slow without using brake lights to tell others to get off my *** or to downshift a couple gears on the highway to pass if needed.

 

I heard the paddle shift is pretty dummy proof. . is it true? I don't want to mess with it too much and break my car

 

it's impossible to paddle down to a lower gear if you are going to fast for that gear, so you can't suddenly break anything that way.

That said, you don't really want to use them to replace your brakes on a regular basis. Brakes are a lot cheaper to replace than engines or transmissions.

It's fine to use em to avoid fade coming down out of the mountains or something, but day to day normal street driving, use the brake pedal, that's what it's there for, and puts a lot less stress on the drivetrain than constant engine braking does.

That said, the paddles are utterly useless for something like a drag race. Leave it in D and ECT-Normal and you'll beat a guy trying to use the paddles every time. The computer is way, way way faster than you are and as noted, the paddles don't directly shift the car anyway... so all you're doing with the paddles is delaying the chance for the FULLY AUTOMATIC transmission to shift at the appropriate time and risking a time-killing bounce off the rev limiter.