I was told that accelerating in Overdrive is bad for your transmission.. is there any truth to that? The circumstances are: I have a 99 V6 5 spd and I'm able to go into overdrive at about 45-50 and when I'm on the freeway I don't like to drop it down into 4th to accelerate when I'm in slow traffic. Am I hurting my transmission? There is no grinding that I hear. The only thing that happens is of course the engine rmps bog down a little. Thanks for the help.

 

In your transmission, 4th IS the overdrive. If you were to take OD off, you would just be in 3rd all the time. If I remember right, your car has a 1-2-3-circleD right? Unless your tranny is different than the other guys around here, you dont even have a 4 on your display.

 

I have a 5 speed manual transmission, I think you're thinking auto? There are no markings to distinguish gears on my shifter.

 

Who told you this Goofie?

 

A guy at a transmission shop?

 

you're not hurting the trans at all. you would probably be if you were throwing 600hp at it, but not with bolt-ons.

 

Thanks for the help. I didn't think the guy knew too much about what he was saying. This same guy after driving my car didn't know if it was a camaro or firebird..... and he thought it was a V8.. Idiot.

 

Unless you are taking off from a stop in 5th gear, it's not a problem. Even then your either going to burn the clutch up or the car will die. If you think about it, everyone would be having transmission problems, if accelerating in overdrive gear was a problem.

 

oh..... ok technically 5th is an overdrive gear, but manuals arent typically thought of as having overdrive. thats an automatic term, hence the confusion.

as long as the motor isnt bogging you are fine. it wont do anythign to the tranny, what you can have, however, is wear on the motor if you drag it down too low

 

An overdrive just specifies the gear ratio is less than 1:1, it's not specific to the transmission, it's just a term. Technically you have 2 overdrive's Spec.