question for the FOrd and GM truck guys

[Jeremy airjer W]

When you go down a hill in your chevy and fords will your transmission downshift and lock in the torque coverter to control your speed?

[Scott K]

Yes, to an extent. If you push the O/D button then more so.

[JohnMickish]

Like how big a hill are we talking. A hill or coming down the mountain pulling a trailer? Cruise on or off? To tell you the truth, I don't know what my Ford does, but when coming down a hill with cruize on I do not go above the set speed.

[Jeremy airjer W]

three ways it will do this, which i think is kinda cool. With the cruise on if you go over speed it will downshift and lock in the torque converter to slow down. On a steep grade you can tap the brake pedal and it will do it. I can manualy downshift to a lower gear and it will do it.

[JohnMickish]

Yea, I guess it does it when I tap the brake. What are you getting at? Lots of ways to slow down, brakes work great too.

[Jeremy airjer W]

I just thought it was something neat that many wouldn't think about.

[Dave S]

Now that you mention it, I did drive down an icy gravel hill yesterday with several curves. Once the truck broke loose, the stabilitrak kicked in, squared me right up and the truck never gained speed after that. Next corner, same thing. It sure is a different feeling when the vehicle basically takes over and applies braking to the corners to keep a person on the road.

[JohnMickish]

Gotcha. I guess you are right in that it is something that goes on but you don't really think about it.

[Youngbuck]

I know that my Dodge Caravan and Truck both downshift when the cruse is set coming down larger hills. I can't remember any of the Chevys I have owned doing that. I know it freaked the wife out the first time, she thought I was going to blow the van up.

[deadeye]

I haven't noticed that myself but I drive older junk.

Kinda neat all the stuff they are putting in vehicles now. Pretty soon they will be driving themselves.

[jeffreyd]

a tad off subject but have to share. on the fire trucks we run, we utilize a driveline retarder along with downshifting the transmission. when our trucks first got here, the computer was mis-programmed and rather than downshifting from 5th to 4th when the accelerator was released, it would drop from 5th to 2nd. the first time it did it it put everyone on the dash. honestly pretty darn funny to see the capt smashed into the glass and the driver wondering what the heck they did.

after researching the issue, found that allision has a provision for motorhomes that does do this type of downshift and said if we wanted to leave it as it is it would not harm the trans.

we decided after the backend came around on one to change it to 3rd gear under 45 mph.

as it was noted earlier someday all we will do is climb in and say go and the vehicle will take us along.