Car fanatics prefer driving manual cars as it provides better control. Even though it can be fun on empty roads, it can also be a strenuous activity in traffic. That’ why other divers prefer automatic cars. Driving an automatic car is straight forward, but there are a few things which can easily mess up the automatic transmission. Below are some of them which are to be avoided at all times.
Forgetting your handbrakes while parking
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It’s quite common to find people casually driving into a parking spot, change the transmission to ‘park’, turn off the engine and leave. What they need to realize here is that the transmission gear is locked only using a small “parking pawl” which can easily break if hit by another car. If this happens and the parked car is on even a slightly elevated surface, it will go rolling down.
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Changing gears before bringing it to a complete stop
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When your car is moving forward and you wish to reverse it, in any case never change the transmission when the car is in motion. Bring your car to complete stop only then change the gear to reverse. The reason is simple, a sudden change in transmission may lead to transmission failure.
Trying to free your car when stuck in sand
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If your car is stuck in desert do not try to accelerate by going forward and reverse. It will only heat up the transmission without any positive outcome. Try to dig around the wheels making a clear pathway for your car to come out or call a tow to pull it out the sand. Both these ways will cost you less when compared to accelerating your way out.
Towing your car from drive wheels can be a bad news
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Cars are generally divided into three drive wheel categories – rear wheel drive, front wheel drive and all-wheel drive. When you have called a tow truck always ensure that the car is lifted from whichever drive wheels category your car has off the ground. If this is ignored, the transmission can have some serious impact.
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Automatic transmission should not be used as a brake
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It’s a general practice in a manual transmission to downshift and use the engine as a brake when reducing speed. However, the same concept is not applicable in an automatic transmission. Using tiptronic gear in an automatic transmission to reduce car speed can lead to excess wear and tear of gears.
Don’t launch your car
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Another mistake that many drivers make is revving up the engine when the car is in neutral and then shifting to drive in high RPM. It can be an exciting feeling to get a quick launch from a still position but the transmission bands will undergo premature wear down which can be expensive to replace.
Cruising in neutral downhill
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It is a common misconception that coasting on neutral when going downhill will result in lower fuel consumption. What really happens in neutral is the engine is disconnected from the wheel hence the engine has to send fuel to the combustion chamber in order to maintain the RPM so that it doesn’t stall.
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