Driving home today I was cruising along hwy about 50mph. I threw the shifter over to the manual mode and noticed immediately that it must put it into a lower gear than I was in when I was in automatic bc the rpm jumped up a little higher. I think it put me in 4th or 5th?? I put it back in auto mode and rpms went back to normal. I'm guessing it's the normal way it operates?

 

yes that's normal

 

Thanks for the reply!

 

I think if you're in automatic mode, you're usually in 8th gear. If you switch to "S" mode you'll immediately go to 6th gear -- you can see the gear you're in on the dashboard. You can up/downshift from there. If you are going too fast, the transmission will not let you downshift below the lowest gear the tranny can handle at that speed. So you CAN'T harm the transmission no matter what you do.
I've practiced putting the gear shift into manual and quickly tapping it backwards several times to downshift to the lowest gear I can get to create the most power and torque I can to be able to avoid an accident up ahead if need be (-2pts for run-on sentence).
Great feature. Uses a little more gas, but also uses the power of the engine.
Try riding around in second gear on city streets -- who needs a BMW?

 

i can't remember exactly anymore, but yes, if you are in 8 (auto), putting into manual will automatically get to 6. i think in local, if you are in 5 or 6, it will go down to 4?