so pleased

[Wheelrepairit]

Well,ive been a surf owner for 12 hrs now and its good,very good.

Picked it up this morning and already done over 100 miles,most impressed but i guess you lot are used to it by now,just one or two questions.

1--what does the button in front of the gear lever do,not the red one,a black one about 6 inches from lever

2---what the hell is overdrive,do i drive with it on or off,i really have no idea.

thanks folks

[marky]

Well,ive been a surf owner for 12 hrs now and its good,very good.

Picked it up this morning and already done over 100 miles,most impressed but i guess you lot are used to it by now,just one or two questions.

1--what does the button in front of the gear lever do,not the red one,a black one about 6 inches from lever

2---what the hell is overdrive,do i drive with it on or off,i really have no idea.

thanks folks

if the black button says ECT its a sports mode the surf stays in gear longer before changing up.
O/D or overdrive is your 4th gear

[jotto]

Well,ive been a surf owner for 12 hrs now and its good,very good.

Picked it up this morning and already done over 100 miles,most impressed but i guess you lot are used to it by now,just one or two questions.

1--what does the button in front of the gear lever do,not the red one,a black one about 6 inches from lever

2---what the hell is overdrive,do i drive with it on or off,i really have no idea.

thanks folks

You will never lose that silly grin now

1-- is like sports mode will keep it in gear longer before changing up

2-- drive with o/d on you will get more mpg

[Planty]

1--what does the button in front of the gear lever do,not the red one,a black one about 6 inches from lever
2---what the hell is overdrive,do i drive with it on or off,i really have no idea.
thanks folks

ok, so now you know what he sports mode does.........
i'm not sure technically what the O/D does but, practically..... what it does is this..... if you're on the motorway doing ...say 80mph you'll be on about 3000rpm. if you click in the O/D you'll still be doing 80 but now only 2000rpm.
i used to have it on my CDX cavalier and just used it as a 5th gear.........
hope that helps.

see ya'll
Planty

[Guest]

ok, so now you know what he sports mode does.........
i'm not sure technically what the O/D does but, practically..... what it does is this..... if you're on the motorway doing ...say 80mph you'll be on about 3000rpm. if you click in the O/D you'll still be doing 80 but now only 2000rpm.
i used to have it on my CDX cavalier and just used it as a 5th gear.........
hope that helps.

see ya'll
Planty

OK the overdrive is not a real overdrive in the old time sense of the word. It is basically the 4th gear in the autobox that you can stop engaging when not travelling at motorway speeds, keeps the revs up and makes acceleration a less painful thing.

On a real overdrive, you get basically a box behind the gearbox that steps up the gearing. With this in place you in effect make a 4 speed box an 8 speed box although unless the gears are evenly spaced most of those extra gears are not much different to the normal ones. What it does for you in real terms is give you an "overdriven" top gear, i.e one that is greater than 1 to 1.

Most top gears in cars are direct drive i.e. 1:1 drive ratio - one turn of the engine = one turn of the output shaft of the gearbox. With an overdrive you would get an overdriven effect that gives you a ration of something like 1:1.25 that is one turn of the engine gives 1.25 turns at the back of the gearbox thus reducing revs for a given engine speed. Problem with that is that the acceleration is shot to hell but the good thing is that the fuel economy is significantly improved.

On the Surf I think the O/D actually gives you a direct top gear and so in truth is not an O/D at all.

I tend to leave my O/D off around town and this improves the accelleration and the fuel economy as the engine doesn't have to work so hard. I use O/D on the motorway.

I don't bother with the Power mode of the ECT because the Surf will never be a traffic light burner anyway so what's the point. I find switching off overdrive much more effective because it is only in top that I find that there is a problem with the engine labouring in gear. Switching O/D off stops that strange hunting in and out of top gear that you sometimes get when going up a hill at about 45mph.

Cheers

[marky]

I don't bother with the Power mode of the ECT because the Surf will never be a traffic light burner anyway so what's the point. You'll be suprised try it & see ive suprised a few people with my surf & had comments like is it a 5.0L
you'll put up a good fight against most standard cars BLING BLING