Driving T5 Auto's

Hello All,

Having owned my first T5 for about 6 weeks now, and actually only driven it a couple of hundred miles; wife has stolen it, thought it was about time I asked for some tips.

It's the first time I've owned and driven an auto, and although it's great when you're trundling round town I haven't worked out yet what you do in certain circumstances :

1)Going down slopes, I've always been a big user of gears instead of riding brakes. I know you have the 2 lower geared options, so do you select these as you're travelling down ?

2) Driving towards corners on open back roads .... I would often drop a gear, again to either reduce speed or to accelerate out of the corner. How on earth do you manage to drop a gear ?

At the moment the sport mode has only been used a couple of times and it certainley pins the kids back in their seats and my 2 yr old shrieks with laughter.

3) Does cruise control improve economy on motorway journeys ? I've been setting it at 65 and the avergae mpg starts going up within no time ! I've had nearly 30 mpg on single track cruising A roads.

I seem to be getting around 23-24ish round town.

Cheers for any tips, volvo manual dosen't help in these areas.

Craig

[Bob]

Q1). Selecting the lower gear manually will help a liitle with engine retardation.

Q2). To drop a gear on an auto you push the acc. pedal to the floor quickly. This is known as 'kick down'. It can also drop a gear by not pushing it all the way to the floor. It all depends on engine speed and road speed, and how many gears you want to drop down. I suggest you try this on a staight road until you get the hang of it.

For bends, brake on the approach until your speed is correct for the bend, then acc. gently around the bend then acc. firmly out of the bend.

Sports mode just holds it in gear longer before changing up. In economy mode you will not reach max revs, but you do in sports mode.

Q3). Cruise control is not always more economical, it depends how hilly or flat the roads are. It will keep the car at the same speed, so it will apply a lot of acc. if the road is hilly, whereas most drivers just drop speed a little and then pick up on the flat. It is just more relaxing on a long drive, traffic and hold ups permitting.

Thanks for that Bob.

I got the feeling that I was using the brakes a lot more than I had done with my previous manual box. I knew the economy isn't supposed to be as good on an auto but I'm also getting the impression I could go through brakes faster.

Have to practice the kick-down a bit more ! So far I've only associated it with picking up speed for overtaking etc.

Cheers,

Craig

[rstrang]

Hi,

I think you will find that you use brakes a lot more - I tend to use the brakes rather than drop a gear, not sure what's best really, but certainly it's cheaper to replace brake pads (and disks) than a gearbox...

Also I leave it in 'Sports' mode all the time I find it suites my style of driving - which is getting a move on (when conditions allow). I find in sports mode, that the car will drop a gear quite early with a gentle squeeze of the throttle, without accelerating much, which is what you need going into a corner.

I don't like using kick-down too much as it puts quite a strain on the whole transmission system (and the passengers).

Richard

[Simon J]

I'm on my second auto T5. The first was a 97 V70 with the four speed box you describe with the sport and economy settings. Personally I rarely resorted to the engine braking method (I've always subscribed to the "brakes are cheaper than engines" philosophy) but found that on a country road it ws better to keep it in third gear. That's good for almost 120mph (tee hee!) but also avoids that lurch when you kick down from top gear to second gear - the kick down from three to two isn't just as vicious.

One thing I did find was that an eye needs to be kept on the throttle as if it became sticky then the kick down wouldn't work properly. I gather that this has been resolved with the drive by wire throttles on the later cars. And I also always felt that the sport setting did more than just alter the change up points. The performance became much more accessible in sport whereas in economy it was quite lethargic. But having said that, very suitable for the school run and general about town driving.

I haven't yet go to grips with the current five speed auto which doesn't have the sport setting and apparently adapts itself to your driving style. One consequence of this is that if the car has been used for pottering around town it takes it a while to realise that you want to use all of the 245 horse once you're on the open road!

[Simon Linton]

When I had an auto I used it as clutchless gearbox, employing engine braking by going into 2 as I approached junctions, queues or corners.

It can take plenty of revs, though I'd replace the ATF if you've got about 80K+ miles in, and remember to flush it through thoroughly; you'll be amazed at the crap that comes out of the box.

Sports mode is definitely the "hooligan button" and great fun to use - the R versions are insignificantly slower in auto than manual, so you're not losing much for the convenience of the self-shifter.

Kick-down is less effective for engine braking since you can downshift and brake at the same time just like a manual, thus lessening stress on box and brakes.

Hello Richard,

Out of interest, if you use mainly the sport mode what economy do you generally see ? I was wondering if it actually made much diff driving in eco mode as apose to using sport but not putting your foot down ?

Cheers,

Craig

[rstrang]

Hi Craig,

MPG normally 24.5 that's around town with 15 mile each way trip to work, either motorway or country roads.

At the moment spending a lot of time in London so 40+ mile trip each way from Reading (M4) generally keeping to the speed limit or slightly slower !!! MPG is upto about 26.


Richard