Any benefits to paddle shifting an automatic ?
 

My mum has a Fit 'sport' that is automatic .
It has paddle shifters on the steering wheel.

Would these help the F.E. over letting the car shift itself ?



The car has an fuel economy display, which is good - she's hooked on getting the high numbers .

Her usual average is " 41 MPG " with a one time high of 45, but based on tank fills it seems to be off around 4 MPG.

its nice for around town, especially when you need to cruise at say, 35mph and the next upshift isn't until 40mph, but traffic won't allow.

Yes, if using the paddles will permit an upshift sooner than automatic mode.

EG: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...rly-21149.html

...yes, this is exactly what happens with the 6-speed automatic in our 2011 Cruze. It wants to stay in 5th gear until you get at/above 45 mph, regardless of the engine load, so I "slap-shift" it and force it into 6th gear at 40 mph (~ 1500 rpm)...and the fuel consumption goes down sooner.

Yep In my 04 Mercedes I have been able to save about 1-2 MPG around town because i could upshift earlier and leave it in a higher gear longer. And my wife gets about 3 MPG better when she manually shifts her Touareg, But that's because otherwise she drives it like it's a Nascar.

So as long as you have the patience to pay attention to it then yes it can be beneficial

upshifting drops rpms, in my case 2250rpms to 1500rpms(3-4), 16-20mpg

If it will let you lug it the bsst you can. When I use the sport mode of the insight it will let you select and it will hold a gear. The only problem is in sport mode that allows manual gear selection the over all ratio is changed, so any speed above 45 mph it runs a higher rev than standard mode.

Having said that I managed pretty decent mpg in sport mode in 7th gear as the engine stayed the same rpm and the assist meter swung about as I went up hills and such vs the revs going up and down too.