L gear breaks cvt?

Nazeem

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Hi guys, today I was driving home from work, and I decided to switch to L gear and omg I thought I broke the car, when I switched to L gear the car feels really jerk with light throttle, I was going around 50km, is this normal for the car to behave this way in L gear? I switched back to D and it drives fine. Also the car becomes louder too when I went in L gear, what exactly does L gear do in these civic cvt? Why did it get louder?
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I'm not a fan of L gear as something to use regularly. I've used it exactly ONE TIME. After that, I basically said hell no. It's going to put your rpms much higher and it will feel a bit more jerky with light throttle inputs. Might be good for some serious engine braking though.
 

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Hi guys, today I was driving home from work, and I decided to switch to L gear and omg I thought I broke the car, when I switched to L gear the car feels really jerk with light throttle, I was going around 50km, is this normal for the car to behave this way in L gear? I switched back to D and it drives fine.
Sounds pretty normal. When you go into L, or S if your car has it, the CVT “downshifts”. The jerk is just the sudden increase in engine RPM. However make sure not to give any throttle whenever you move the shifter.
 
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Nazeem

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Sounds pretty normal. When you go into L, or S if your car has it, the CVT “downshifts”. The jerk is just the sudden increase in engine RPM. However make sure not to give any throttle whenever you move the shifter.
Ok but why does the car get louder tho?
 

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ClintFK7

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As mentioned above the jerkiness and noise was a more sensitive throttle response starting from a higher cruising RPM. It doesn't break anything but you need to understand what each mode is doing to appreciate why you would ever want to use that mode.

L mode will keep the car at about 6K rpm at WOT and will not fake shift. This provides a steady horsepower state as the car is kept at constant maximum power level. Keep in mind each time the fake shift drops your engine RPMs your engine's power output is also reduced consistent with what you would see on a Dyno graph. L mode is best for drag racing but not really for driving around. You can also use the higher RPMs for engine braking if you want to help your brakes on a steep downhill grade.

From a racing standpoint, you may also notice that if already in L mode the car may still build slowly to 6K RPM when you floor the accelerator. If you want to instantly flash the stall to 6K RPM you can shift to L AFTER providing WOT. This is the fastest way to mimic a downshift into peak RPM but is also probably the hardest on the life of the CVT. Keep in mind the torque converter generates more heat when it is "flashed" and the transmission and engine generate more heat when constantly held at peak RPMs.

S mode will allow the fake shifts to occur similar to D mode but still aims for a higher rpm before fake shifting. This mode would be a good track mode or for episodes of spirited driving.

D mode doesn't take the peak RPM quite as high before fake shifting.

If you want the fastest acceleration time use L mode. If you want a more conventional driving experience use S or D.
 
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Is L faster off the line? I had an r18 cvt civic and one time I put it in L before a left turn from a stop and it wouldn't rev up like it does in S. I'll never forget it because I thought the oncoming traffic would hit me because I wasn't accelerating like expected. I usually kept it in S
 

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I accidently did this once. I was in 'S' and meant to switch back to 'D'. But I pulled it into 'L'. I was probably at around 3000 RPM and 35-45 MPH when I did this. Once in 'L'; the engine started to rev up higher but the tach was bouncing off of 4000; almost like there was a 4K redline/limiter. I had just reached the top of a hill; in case anyone's wondering. But I posted about this and was assured that the engine/CVT behaved as programmed. I'm much more careful with it now. And there's been no issues to my knowledge since.

(2018 LX 2.0 CVT)
 
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Nazeem

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Higher rpms.
But when the car is in D and I go faster and higher rpm it still not as loud as L in the same rpm, for example D around 4000rpm is a 4/10 loud where as in L same 4000prpm is 7/10 louder, so it's something else too
 


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L and S gears have been around forever in older cars with automatics, they just been labeled as 1 and 2. For the many years I have used these gears was mainly to drive long hills to ease the strain on the components. L for going up very steep hills and S for going down long steep inclines. Going into these gears downhill with added braking also gives more engine braking response than if you left it in drive. Given that the CVT is a fragile trans compared to many types on the market, I personally wouldn't use it for launches.
 

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I drive in S mode, D for 25mph or less cruising (neighborhoods for example), and L when I'm decelerating from 35-0. Occasionally I'll get the jerking motion depending on weather conditions, how long I've been driving, etc. CVT seems to be holding up fine.
 

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I drive in S mode, D for 25mph or less cruising (neighborhoods for example), and L when I'm decelerating from 35-0. Occasionally I'll get the jerking motion depending on weather conditions, how long I've been driving, etc. CVT seems to be holding up fine.
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