[hat_man]

Hello everyone.

This time the question is about our 2009 Saturn Aura.

We didn't buy the car for mileage reasons but because my wife liked it and she is the one driving it 80% of the time. It has the "manu-matic" type trans that I really never liked because it doesn't allow me to shift to the gear I want when I want. It downshifts when it wants to, not when I want to. To get into 5th gear I have to be going almost 40 mph. It will cruise at 35mph (even as low as 32) in 5th, but to get there I have to risk a speeding ticket in town. I always watch the tach and speedo when I'm driving to get an idea of where the sweet spots are at but have a terrible time keeping them there so the few times I drive it I just use in "automatic" (no paddle shifting).

The other day I was taking my sister in law to work and she asked what the paddles were for. I pulled over and put in "manu-matic" mode and showed her. When we took off I shifted as normal, knowing that I never usually use it and had never really tried it at highway speeds. When I hit 5th gear at 60mph I was around 2000 rpm. I hit the paddle again and M6 popped up in the DIC. What??? I didn't know it had a 6th gear. It dropped to around 1600 RPM and cruised so quietly that you would have never thought the engine was running. After dropping her off I tried to replicate the 1600ish RPM in "automatic" mode. It would never drop below 2000 RPM. I even tried going faster to make it change gears thinking that if I had to go faster in "manu-matic" mode to reach 5th (and then could cruise slower) maybe "automatic" mode was the same. I didn't mash the throttle and make it downshift to "passing gear" just a steady increase to make it want to go into 6th. Even at 80 MPH (good thing I was on the interstate) it would never drop below 2000 RPM. So I pull over and switch to "manu-matic" mode and take off. I was able to get into 6th at 62 MPH and watched the RPM's drop accordingly.

So after all that back story the question is......why can't I get into 6th gear in "automatic" mode? I mean if 6th gear is available in the mechanics of the trans, why will it only engage in "manu-matic"???

Luckily I do most of the driving on our get-away trips and will be using "manu-matic" on the highway from now on. But it is frustrating that it won't engage in "automatic" mode.