I am used to driving a manual transmission. So when I drive a car with an automatic transmission (just plain old PRNDL automatic, not those "shiftable automatics" or tiptronics or anything fancy like that) I sometimes shift down to a lower gear to slow down or when going up/down steep grade then shift back to Drive. My friends all wonder why anyone would shift an automatic, but I am just too used to shifting. Does anybody else shift their automatics?

So is it harmful to shift an automatic transmission too often?

 

hmm, I only do on steep hills..

 

I've never thought it was harmful, just because you aren't really shifting. You're actually just locking out the higher gears so that it won't shift up on you. But then again, someone told me that if I just keep the revs high on an automatic, you can overheat the tranny fluid. But I don't really know enough technical knowledge of the slush box to know if it could happen or not.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by WhiteS2k
[B]I am used to driving a manual transmission.

 

Downshifting to slow down on a regular basis will probably put some unusual wear on your tranny. My guess is not that it is not recommended. Might want to check your owners manual to see if the issue is addressed.

 

I believe if you check the owner's manual you will see that they recommend that you do just that in certain circumstances. There should be no problem manually shifting your automatic transmission. If there was a problem with this, you would see warnings in the owner's manuals and I have never seen anything like this in 39 years of car ownership. Half of my cars have been stick shift and half automatic transmissions.

My last car was driven as if it were a stick shift with no problems at all. This was an Intrigue with the 3.5L engine.