How to properly Engine Brake

gtman said:

Oh, you're talking about engine "braking". That's just a way to save a little bit of wear and tear on the engine by dropping the transmission a gear or two instead of riding the brakes. On the CVT, dropping it into S will give you some engine braking. I wouldn't use L unless you were on a lower speed, steep downhill.

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Hi, I have been using that eco button for “braking aid”, could you please tell me if that’ll do any harm? I have the 2.0 CVT auto. Thank you.

oliviaiiii said:

Hi, I have been using that eco button for “braking aid”, could you please tell me if that’ll do any harm? I have the 2.0 CVT auto. Thank you.

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The Econ button mostly just dulls throttle response, it doesn't do any sort of engine braking. No harm keeping it in Econ 100% of the time. The only issue is it's less fun.

There is no harm. You can engine brake just by letting go of the gas and be moving greater than 15mph.

In street driving, to maximize mpg, one would want to be in the highest gear without lugging the engine. In Auto trans, you can let the ECU handle this. CVT is especially good at this because of infinite ratios. I do this as much as I can anticipating red lights or stop signs. (Having to accelerate from a complete stop takes too much gas)

In track driving, well you'd increase gear ratios to increase engine braking effect so as to, say, immediately be in the power band coming out of corners.

Overall, in street driving, just let go of gas pedal. Increase gear ratio to increase engine braking effect if needed. If you begin engine braking early enough, you may not even need to come to a complete stop in certain scenarios.

TouringBlue said:

Full disclosure: I just learned that Engine Braking is a thing and I'm blown away by it even though it's pretty straightforward and common.

So how do you properly apply this when you're driving at 60 mph and you want to slow down a descending hill? Is it simply shifting from D to L (or S) after I let go of the accelerator pedal? I get a bad gut feeling that I may be doing something that could harm my CVT.

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It depends on the hill's incline. if it is a light incline, it may as well be enough to let go of the pedal and leave it in drive. If you speed still increases faster than you'd like, then you can shift drive mode to S, press the - paddle shifter if you have a sport CVT, or go down a gear in manual. L drive really should not be used unless the hill is really that steep; but then you'd probably she be then using both engine braking and manual braking.

My commute to work is driving through a windy 4000 feet mountain so I engine brake all the time. I even engine brake at 70 mph and my car has zero issues whatsoever.

Is it bad to switch from D to S (or L) while your foot is lightly on the accelerator?

TouringBlue said:

Is it bad to switch from D to S (or L) while your foot is lightly on the accelerator?

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100% OK.

ThorSellsCars said:

theres a guy on here thats done that ill find the post

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Wasn't me

OK, here is a scenario: Drive to New Hampshire. Take the toll road to the top of Mount Washington, which is 6200 feet high. When you get to the top, be sure to wait a minute or two before turning off the engine, because that's a hard climb and the turbo will be hot. (As you have probably heard, a turbocharger can get extremely hot, and if you stop the engine immediately, oil stops circulating through the turbocharger bearings. The oil in the turbocharger can get cooked at an unacceptably high temperature even though the engine is off and the turbo is no longer spinning.) Climbing a high mountain is just about the hardest job that a turbocharger can do. I think the turbo would be hotter than if you drove laps on a race track.

Enjoy the view and buy a "This Car Climbed Mount Washington" bumper sticker. Then get back in your car and drive down the toll road. Driving down that long steep hill without any engine braking would be hard on the pads and rotors. Instead, set your CVT to S or to L so that the engine will slow down the car to some extent. You will drive down the hill with the engine at a fairly high RPM (whatever you are comfortable with) and you will still use the brakes as needed. Descending with engine braking will be easier on your pads and rotors. The engine will not have any trouble with high RPMs as long as you are always well below the redline. Also, I believe that the forces on your CVT transmission will not be very high. The transmission has to work much harder to get you up the mountain than it does to get you down.

Come to think of it, while you are at the top, ask the people who drive that road every day how they do engine braking, and how their cars are holding up. They will probably have some stories and advice.

gtman said:

Not so much complicated but a lot of first time CVT owners here. I was one of them. Even though, in principal, you press the gas and go they do work a bit differently than a traditional automatic.

95% of my cars have been manual. My last car before the Civic was a traditional auto and there was a bit of a learning curve going to a CVT. At first I didn't care for it, but now I appreciate how good a job Honda did with it. It matches up well with the turbo overall.

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It’s underrated. Takes a lot of seat time to really figure out how to utilize it to its full potential.