Overdrive ???

[neonsigns]

What does automatic transmission 'overdrive' mean? Does that Galant have overdrive? Can anyone help?

[extremsprt86]

overdrive is the 3/2/L below "D" you can manually tell the car what gear to be in for different driving situations.

[Auto-9]

Our overdrive gear is 4th gear. It's usually the one that has higher than 1:1 gear ratio (in the Galant, this is 3rd gear which is why it pulls so hard when you finally reach it). Note that some cars have more than 1 gear above the 1:1 ratio, like the Lincoln LS. It's for fuel efficiency mainly (in my opinion), but in the end allows you to attain a higher top speed.

[neonsigns]

Thank you. The reason I am asking is that I am planing on buying a Levoc Shift Knob. It has a overdrive switch. Where do I plug it in or do I just leave it alone.

[pinoyesv6]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(neonsigns)</div><div class='quotemain'>Thank you. The reason I am asking is that I am planing on buying a Levoc Shift Knob. It has a overdrive switch. Where do I plug it in or do I just leave it alone.</div>

the us 8g doesn't have an overdrive button. some cars have overdrive buttons so you can disable and enable it when u want. ours is automatic. the button is just a switch so it could be a switch for almost anything, like ur lighting or something.

[peanotation]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(pinoyesv6)</div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(neonsigns)</div><div class='quotemain'>Thank you. The reason I am asking is that I am planing on buying a Levoc Shift Knob. It has a overdrive switch. Where do I plug it in or do I just leave it alone.</div>

the us 8g doesn't have an overdrive button. some cars have overdrive buttons so you can disable and enable it when u want. ours is automatic. the button is just a switch so it could be a switch for almost anything, like ur lighting or something.</div>

yeah, u could rig the switch up to anything. on my car it releases the poison tear gas out the back bumper for anyone following me..... :?

[neonsigns]

Thanks for the info :-)

[manybrews]

the word "overdrive" is pretty silly in todays cars.

overdrive stands for any gear that is "over" driven, meaning the output turns faster than the input.

direct drive is when the input and output speeds are identical (i.e 1 to 1 ratio).

and all other gears are "under" driven, meaning the input spins faster than the output.


but no one calls gears "underdrive" or "directdrive", so the use of the word "overdrive" is pretty stupid to me. besides, there are MANY cars on the market with more than one gear overdriven. most 6 speeds have at least 2 overdriven gears.

[Moosh]

kickass explanation many

[Gladiator]

dumb question but I can switch around from 2 to 3 to D on the highways right? Or so downshift from D to 3 so I can gain maximum HP.

[Auto-9]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Gladiator)</div><div class='quotemain'>dumb question but I can switch around from 2 to 3 to D on the highways right? Or so downshift from D to 3 so I can gain maximum HP. </div>

Yes you can upshift and downshift manually, however you usually will not need to shift down to 3 from D unless you're at excessively high speeds. The transmission automatically shifts for you once you floor it and only comes back to overdrive gear at around 80 mph I believe.