nunusguy
Senior Member
- First Name
- Don
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2018
- Threads
- 2
- Messages
- 52
- Reaction score
- 6
- Location
- Houston
- Vehicle(s)
- 2018 Civic Sport Hatch
Thanks BarracksSi, that was a very comprehensive and helpful response and I appreciate it, you da man !Gotta clear this up...
Engine braking (to "mansplain" further) uses the engine's internal friction (as drivers, we don't really care whether it's mechanical friction or pneumatic resistance) to slow down the car.
This helps in the mountains because you can regulate your speed on looooooong downhills without having to use the brakes. If you're on the brakes for ten or twenty minutes straight, they might overheat, and then you're SOL.
In manual transmissions, you'd achieve this by downshifting, of course. In older automatics, it's the same thing -- move the lever to "2" or whatever. In our CVT Civics, "S" or "L" will do the job (and in the Sport trims with paddle shifters, you can click down to a shorter ratio via the left paddle, too).
nunusguy, I haven't been on the same route, so I don't know exactly what warning signs you saw. But I've generally seen only two types -- signs to encourage engine braking (such as "Use Low Gear - Downhill 15 miles") and signs to prohibit it, the latter of which usually in residential areas to tell big trucks to not use their "Jake brakes" to avoid disturbing people in their homes.
So to dovetail this back into the original question, "Is it OK to shift between Drive and Sport while moving?" ---
Yup, it's fine, just like it was always OK to shift between D, 2, 1, etc., in traditional fully-mechanical automatics. It's even less of a concern now because the CVT is entirely computer-controlled and will not choose a ratio that'd cause the engine to over-rev. The capability to do this on-the-move is to allow engine braking (or, rarely, if the uphill is long and gradual, and the transmission can't decide for itself which ratio to use).
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