L gear breaks cvt?

[Nazeem]

How many miles are on your car?

57,579km

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[BlueJay21]

I normally drive in S after around 60mph I shift down to D for better gas mileage IMO I like to in a higher rpm with more power putting less strain on the CVT. I'll just use L as a first gear just to get to higher rpm from a dead stop or to engine break, It's perfectly normal I haven't had any issues yet.

 

[ClintFK7]

It's because of the 21 PSI Tune: ECO on and his car is stock. ECO off activates the tune.

Guess it pays to know the backstory of the car. I saw stock in the title and didn't realize he was tuned. Thanks for clarifying!

 

[Troy Jollimore]

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.

Nope. Completely different animals. The old school ‘2’ and ‘1/L’ in the automatics would lock the transmission in those gears. As you say, for descending steep hills to make it easier on your brakes, or for a bit more control on snow or ice. Shouldn’t have been needed for ascending hills unless your transmission refused to downshift correctly. My wife’s VW Golf is like that, stays geared too high and lugs the engine.

The newer ‘non-Sport‘ Civics did away with either ‘S’ or ‘L’, can’t remember which. But ‘S’ is the same as ‘D’, only it holds higher RPMs for what should be a bit more throttle response and acceleration. ‘L’ is true CVT operation with constant operation at peak power.

The funny thing is that I saw the post with those times before. I did a similar test on a stretch of road near my house. I didn’t time it, but I was going at a faster speed past the same point with each run using ‘D’, ‘S’, and ‘L’, as you’d expect.

 

[Civic_rob]

How many miles are on your car?

~35,000 or so.

 

[gtman]

The newer ‘non-Sport‘ Civics did away with either ‘S’ or ‘L’, can’t remember which.

Actually, it's the models with paddle shifters (Sport/Sport Touring/'19-up Touring sedans) that don't have L mode. All the other CVT Civics have D, S and L.

 

[ClintFK7]

The funny thing is that I saw the post with those times before. I did a similar test on a stretch of road near my house. I didn’t time it, but I was going at a faster speed past the same point with each run using ‘D’, ‘S’, and ‘L’, as you’d expect.

So you found L to be faster than S and S to be faster than D?

 

[Troy Jollimore]

That’s how it worked out for me. Probably only a 3-5 mph difference between them, as I remember, so not much. And speed can be disparate from time.

 

[ClintFK7]

That's the order I would expect.

0-60 is a fairly small window to test which is why the times were so close in the video.

Without knowing the knock control values and post intercooler temps, we can't take the time comparisons in the video to mean much. He also had to provide steering input at the beginning of his S mode test run as compared to the other two runs and the same section of road wasn't used. All things considered, I think a more controlled comparison would yield D mode to be slowest.

 

[UnknownNate]

Nope. Completely different animals. The old school ‘2’ and ‘1/L’ in the automatics would lock the transmission in those gears. As you say, for descending steep hills to make it easier on your brakes, or for a bit more control on snow or ice. Shouldn’t have been needed for ascending hills unless your transmission refused to downshift correctly. My wife’s VW Golf is like that, stays geared too high and lugs the engine.

The newer ‘non-Sport‘ Civics did away with either ‘S’ or ‘L’, can’t remember which. But ‘S’ is the same as ‘D’, only it holds higher RPMs for what should be a bit more throttle response and acceleration. ‘L’ is true CVT operation with constant operation at peak power.

The funny thing is that I saw the post with those times before. I did a similar test on a stretch of road near my house. I didn’t time it, but I was going at a faster speed past the same point with each run using ‘D’, ‘S’, and ‘L’, as you’d expect.

In my car it's always felt as if L just loses power after 50-60 mph, and at that point S seems to more efficiently gain speed. L definitely feels as though its pulling harder before that, it just lacks at highway speeds imo.
It also doesn't make much sense to me that D is faster than both S and L in a 0-60, maybe in the video the tires spun/hopped some?

 

[ClintFK7]

In my car it's always felt as if L just loses power after 50-60 mph, and at that point S seems to more efficiently gain speed. L definitely feels as though its pulling harder before that, it just lacks at highway speeds imo.
It also doesn't make much sense to me that D is faster than both S and L in a 0-60, maybe in the video the tires spun/hopped some?

It could be an illusion as the G forces of the hole shot and spool up start to level off, the feeling of power increasing by climbing RPMs "feels" faster than the feeling of a constant power level at a fixed RPM. The constant hum is rather boring compared to a rising exhaust note.

 

[Troy Jollimore]

It’s another reason people don’t ‘like’ CVTs. You don’t get the seat of the pants feeling of forward thrust, but the results are the same or better.

When I had my Talon AWD, my little brother had a Civic SiR. My car FELT like you were being launched from a cannon, but his was always right behind me. His felt like…nothing. But the speedometer needle would rise just as quickly.

 

[Tobiman]

S mode is the closest to a sport/manual mode on a DCT/Auto trans. It pulls to the redline, allowing you to make full use of power in the lower gears especially. On my Sport model with the paddle shifters, it makes the car fun to drive. I can rip all the way to redline and shift when I want. I haven't tried banging the car on the limiter to see if the car will auto-shift, but sport mode will allow you to rev the car to the limiter, unlike D-mode.

The S-mode isn't a full manual mode because it won't let you shift to a higher gear at low speeds, unlike a proper DCT/Auto gearbox in full manual mode.

 

[Nazeem]

S mode is the closest to a sport/manual mode on a DCT/Auto trans. It pulls to the redline, allowing you to make full use of power in the lower gears especially. On my Sport model with the paddle shifters, it makes the car fun to drive. I can rip all the way to redline and shift when I want. I haven't tried banging the car on the limiter to see if the car will auto-shift, but sport mode will allow you to rev the car to the limiter, unlike D-mode.

The S-mode isn't a full manual mode because it won't let you shift to a higher gear at low speeds, unlike a proper DCT/Auto gearbox in full manual mode.

There's no paddle in my car jus d,s and L

 

[bcrichster]

S mode is the closest to a sport/manual mode on a DCT/Auto trans. It pulls to the redline, allowing you to make full use of power in the lower gears especially. On my Sport model with the paddle shifters, it makes the car fun to drive. I can rip all the way to redline and shift when I want. I haven't tried banging the car on the limiter to see if the car will auto-shift, but sport mode will allow you to rev the car to the limiter, unlike D-mode.

The S-mode isn't a full manual mode because it won't let you shift to a higher gear at low speeds, unlike a proper DCT/Auto gearbox in full manual mode.

Umm.. I think I've already done it in my Sport with paddle shifters. At least the numbers changed, Lol

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