Some A/T questions

[Christ]

Neutral - Internal Combustion Engine - On.

There is also NICE-Off, which is EOC in short.

Check out the glossary threads.

[thatguitarguy]

This doesn't work in any other A/T vehicle I've ever driven, but in my minivan when I lift off the gas I can feel, just for a second, a tiny bit of engine braking, then the TC seems to freewheel while keeping the engine speed up, but the current MPG climbs very quickly because of the DFCO.

I haven't done scientific coastdown testing, but there seems to be very little difference in speed or FE readings between coasting in gear or in neutral, and I have gone back and forth on this quite a bit to see.

Like I say, this is the only vehicle I've found this on, so I don't know if this is an anamoly, or if this is by design.

[Christ]

Your van is weird. I say that with love for the Chrysler minivan, but it's true. They're all a bit strange.

Did you know that if you put your transmission in "1" on the selector, and just give it hell, it will automagically shift anyway? Yep! Goes right up about 500 short of redline and shifts. Genius.

For their size, the V6 vans are fairly efficient beasts when driven correctly. See, you're only slightly lower than my best tanks with Cara on your average!

[thatguitarguy]

I have no reason to give it hell in "1", but I do know that if I'm going down a steep hill and I need the engine for braking it won't shift into "1" unless the speed is below 60.

Another really weird thing about this van is that when I'm in cruise control it won't downshift when I start going up a hill. It will just let the speed drop. If I just barely blip the accelerator it will downshift 1 gear, and if necessary, I can barely blip it again to go down another gear. If I have to go lower I have to take over manually. This means I can run more efficiently up the steep hills by using cruise control, because if I manually work the pedal it automatically shifts down. It's interesting watching it when I'm going up a long steep hill - which I do all the time - it will always downshift when responding to input from my foot, no matter how gentle I am, but if I set the CC it will upshift and stay in a higher gear until I blip the pedal, and I can see better instant MPG in CC.

This has the 3.8L so with more torque it does get better FE because it's easier to keep going in the lower gears.

It may be screwed up, but it works just right for my purposes.

[Christ]

The cruise thing has to be a learned behavior (read: intended malfunction)... I've never seen it do that.