When Driving uphill

[gr8vibe]

Hey all,Had my vibe 2006 for over a week now and love it!! the only thing that concerns me is when going uphill, I noticed i was pressing on the gas but it seemed i wasnt speeding up. What can i do next time? Shift to L? or 2? or hit the o/d button so that the O/D Off light comes on? Im a bit confused. My older car didnt have OD and i cant get an answer as to when to and not to use it.thanks!

[Raven]

Have you owned a car with under 130HP before? If you are climbing a hill the transmission should downshift on it's own if it is working properly. Try flooring it like you were passing someone, it should shift and get you going up the hill faster. When I had my automatic Vibe, I noticed it was very anemic on hills. A header and Magnaflow exhaust will wake it up!

[scherry2]

yes, turn your overdrive off when going up hills. it will then act like 3rd gear and you will have higher RPM's and more power.if you search for "overdrive" you will see that many have asked that same question.

[joatmon]

Quote, originally posted by rch2005 » i cant get an answer as to when to and not to use it. Overdrive is just the top gear, disabling it keeps the transmission from shifting into that gear. When I had a car with automatic transmission and an O/D off switch, I only ever used it when going down a mountain, or some really long hill, when I wanted to shift to a lower gear to let the engine brake the car, so I didn't have to ride the brakes so much. Supposedly OD should be off when towing stuff. You could turn it off when going uphill, if the transmission doesn't downshift like you want it to, but remember to turn it back on when you get over the top. Running in a lower gear will give you more power by having the engine RPMs be higher, more in the power band of the engine, but running with OD off all the time will hurt your MPGs. Occaisionally turning it off and back on won't hurt anything, and OD doesn't matter unless you are going fast enough for the car to want to shift into the top gear.I think there are number of topics here about overdrive, a search should turn up a few.

[mathteacher'04vibe]

My wife and I just took our Vibe to NC and back. On the way back, we went through the Allegheny Natl. Forest and all its scenic mountains. I was concerned about being able to motor up them before our trip. However, my header, S/R intake and custom exhaust had me climbing the 7% grades in 2nd (maybe 3rd) gear screaming something like 5k RPM's, but it did pull up at 75+ mph and still had more! You just have to floor it. The engine noise gets a little annoying after about 5 minutes of climbing, but the Vibe can pull hills--it just takes passing gear.