Ok, this is kind of a drivetrain question, but there's nothing wrong with it so I put it here. My Dad has a 95 Suburban with a 454 and 4L80E automatic. It runs awesome considering it has close to 300k on it. The only thing is he drives around the streets in 3rd gear, rather than overdrive. The only time he shifts to overdrive is on the highway. He insists this makes the transmission lasts longer, but I'm not so sure. Has anyone ever heard of this, or know if it actually works?

 

He is releasing the stress on the motor and trans.The motor isn't being bogged down with too low of a street driving gear,causing ware on the valves.and,easing up on the trans(clutches in the trans.)It's old school,but hey.I'm old as well.Ever drive a motorcycle at 30 mph in fouth gear?Same thing.My02.(bogs it down).

 

the school of thought with putting it in Drive instead of over drive is that the transmission will not shift gears as much which causes heat build up. when im towing with my cobalt i do this because i dont want the tranny constantly shifting.

a transmission cooler would be a better idea if you ask me. in my 2500 i have a large transmission cooler and i have 170k on the truck and the orginial 4l80e. the 4l80e is one heavy duty transmission there sorta hard to tear up from what i been told.

 

Yea, I already figured it would be pretty hard to destroy a 4L80E. And he already has a heavy duty factory cooler on there. I was just curious if anyone else had heard of this.

 

Didn't all ready have a trans cooler?I dunno.

 

A lot of older guys are like this, won't drive in overdrive unless they are on the highway. One told me when the 4 speeds first came out they messed up a lot and that was the conclusion they came to for the reason. Don't know how true any of it is though on the story.

 

That's what I figured as well. I hear a lot of "quick fixes" and little tricks that they had way back when parts weren't the quality they are now, and the older car guys just keep doing what worked back then.

 

yeah keep wasting that gas....

 

I was thinking about that this morning. Even if it did make the transmission tear up quicker back in the day,with gas the way it is today I'd take the hit because it'll probably cost more in gas to drive in 3rd all the time.

 

Makes no difference if you drive around city in 3rd gear, for one reason OD dose not kick in until you go over 40 MPH.
So either way you are in 3rd gear most of the time. Most city speed limits are under 40 MPH. My opinion and I drive in OD anyways.

 

I always leave mine in OD, except when racing I put it in drive, sometimes OD.

 

it does make a difference not everyone drives around the city at 40MPH some of us drive around on roads which let you reach 100mph in the streets if you wanted to olgear head or not its just plain STUPID unless your driving around town at 25 mph how annoyingly loud can that be especially back in the day when they would romp the old m22's and 21's with 4.88 and 5.13 gears lets be realistic....gas savings is not happening unless you drive slower then a snail.

GEESH...