Auto Gearbox - Gear Changing - SD4

With all the posts reference MPG it got me thinking as to why LR/RR are so off the mark....
Surely they can't be that far off?

I am not an engineer and do not profess to have any great knowledge of gearboxes of any sort, but I thought I would go for a test run...

To cut a long story short, my MPG is roughly 30 after 1000 miles down the line. There are no motorways or dual carraigeways where I live so 60mph is the legal limit. Whilst travelling at this speed, or slightly below, the gearbox very rarely engages 6th gear. I forced selection using command shift and the car responds well at the new rpm, and, the mpg has now averaged 36mpg, thats a 20% improvement. Its not scientific, or lengthy, but I am curious as to why the 6th gear selection is actioned as late as 60mph?

Other than forcing the selection using command shift is there any way the selection program be altered to select 6th at, say, 50mph, which the Evoque can easily handle?

Discuss...

The gearbox should learn that you want to shift up to sixth eventually, I'm in a similar situation as you regarding road types and found that the car initially didn't like going into sixth automatically however I have persuaded it to, not by using the paddle shift but, once up to speed I ease up on the throttle and it shifts up no problem now. The only fly in the ointment is if you have any gradients to go up which may be what is preventing yours from engaging sixth or if the engine isn't fully warmed up to mid temperature gauge.
If it doesn't start shifting up fairly soon then you may have to take the car to a dealership to have the gearbox ECU reflashed, or just have the battery disconnected to force it to forget it's previous "lessons"

I noticed this yesterday on a drive up the coast. The speeds were constantly between 48-60mph and i noticed it wouldn't change to 6th until around 60mph unless i did it manually. I had a little play with it and on slight downhill gradients with minimal throttle you can manually select 6th at 48mph. That was a 60 mile journey and the average mpg was 37.4 when i got home.

(12-03-2012 02:33pm)SiT Wrote:  I noticed this yesterday on a drive up the coast. The speeds were constantly between 48-60mph and i noticed it wouldn't change to 6th until around 60mph unless i did it manually. I had a little play with it and on slight downhill gradients with minimal throttle you can manually select 6th at 48mph. That was a 60 mile journey and the average mpg was 37.4 when i got home.

If it isn't a daft question, without experimenting with the paddles, how do you know whether it's in sixth gear or not??

It's one reason for having a rev counter

(12-03-2012 03:06pm)Donny Dog Wrote:  If it isn't a daft question, without experimenting with the paddles, how do you know whether it's in sixth gear or not??

As Tims post above or If your RPM's are low say under 2K, pull the + paddle, it will display the current gear. It won't hurt it as if it does decide to shift up it will soon reselect auto and downshift if you don't carry on accelerating.

I find the gear box goes into 5th at exactly 73kph when driving to work.

The six seed automatic gearbox on the Evoque and Freelander has the following lower speed limits for the gears in my experience:

4th 30 mph
5th 40 mph
6th 50 mph

So on the flat with a light throttle the car should go into 6th at just over 50 mph and will hold that gear until acceleration is required, a change in gradient occurs or the speed drops below 50 mph.

I have spent many miles driving in sport and manual override modes using the paddle shift in my Evoque and the wife's SD4 Freelander and these are the speed limits I have encountered.

There is quite a bit more information on the automatic gearbox in the attached pdf. I studied Mechanical Engineering, albeit over 30 years ago, so I find this stuff interesting......

I watched my rev counter today and it went into 6th at 52mph.
Claud do you know if the torque converter has a lock-up on 5th and sixth?

According to the pdf attached above page 2 it has electronically regulated lock up on gears 2 to 6. This must really help with fuel economy.