While driving my van with the scanguage it occurred to me there may be a guage on it that can help me predict how much more throttle I can give the ole girl without making the transmission downshift. I live in a rather hilly area, so this is info well worth looking for.
After cycling through the guages during a rather boring drive, I realized the LOD gauge is just the ticket. LOD is the measure of the percentage of load on the engine for the current throttle position; or at least that's what I'm pretty sure it is.
Anyway, 99 is as high as it will go. When the LOD guage reads 99, and you press the gas pedal further, it will downshift very soon. But if I keep the LOD reading less than 99, and my speed doesn't drop too much, I can keep it in top gear longer. So I aimed to keep the LOD guage less than 95, and kept the 4000 lb rig from downshifting nearly as much as it usually does.
Doing this I've been able to get my tank average to about 24, compared to my normal average of about 20 (in a vehicle rated to give 17
) I figured those of you with a scanguage and an auto would be interested in this.