Is it true that its bad for your auto when you manually shift it, because why else woudl they put it there and when you have a shift kit i hear it shifts harder when you put it in 1 and 2. jsut trying to be safe thanks

 

Manually upshifting is ok. Excessive manual downshifting (especially from higher speeds) is not ok.

 

I wouldn't advise it, several magazines I have say not to do it, burnt bands and clutches are what manually shifting the 4l60e will get you. I'm no tranny mechanic, but they say it has to do with line pressure not being high enough to shift properly.

From a stop there's no point anyway, since the tranny is electronically controlled, it will bring it all the way up to redline and shift as hard as it can every single time you floor it- at least mine does, problems with vacuum or changing throttle bodies can upset this though.

The only time it would be ok is if you're getting ready to punch it from a roll, but even then make sure you're not pushing it too far, you shouldn't have to go more than one gear down, if you can go farther than one, the computer will decide to downshift for you if it thinks it will aid acceleration when you floor it.

I'm still very lucky my tranny didn't drop on the pavement when my friend decided that 2nd gear would be a good choice at 80 mph. I still give him hell about that one...

Manually shifting an auto is destroying one of the advantages that the auto has, which would be consistency. The other two would be no missed shifts and easier launches.

 

is bad for for the trans even if u jsut drive it once in awhile in 1 or 2 in the neighborhood?

 

Why would you want to? Just put the car in third and cruise around in that until you get to 45 or higher and then put it in OD.

I also have heard it's very bad to manually shift a 4L60E. But recently there was a debate over in LS1tech on this subject and a lot of tranny gurus were saying it's ok to upshift just don't downshift. So going 1-2-3-OD manually is fine if you remember there is a delay. So shifting up at 5900 rpm's will hit the delay and shift the car at about 6100 rpm's. I only mention that so if anyone tries manually upshifting for the first time that they don't bounce the rev limiter.

But I'm still not 100% convinced it's not bad for the tranny so I'll just keep mine in third or OD at all times. My opinion is if you have a A4 F-body you should get a higher stall TC, Tranny cooler & shift kit to really wake up the car and then just let the computer do it's job and shift for you.

But that's just me.