Yea, i dont ever mess with mine. I live out in the country so im usually runnin 60 on country roads. Personally, i wouldnt mess with it, just leave it on, (especially if you drive fast more often than you drive slow):bigthumbsup
[Discuse] Ford Mustang 2006 Overdrive
Hello guys I am new to these forums and I just got my Ford Mustang 2006 today! I am 16 years old turning 17 soon and I love this car and what I noticed is that it had an overdrive (O/D) button on the side of the gear stick, I did not know what it meant until I looked it up in the car's manual. The information from the manual stated that you should usually have overdrive on when on highway when you gain enough speed, and also stated that it is better to turn it off while driving at slow speeds in cities, towns, etc... I know that if you turn off overdrive your car will produce more power and higher RPM so I am was wondering on your opinions that would it be better to drive in overdrive while just driving around town or would it be better to just have it off. Overdrive does save more gas from what I have read while driving at high speeds, but would it be necessary to have it on while in town, and since you would not be going fast would it really save any gas while its on?... so I was wondering what you guys think since most of you if not all of you have experience on mustangs.
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The O/D button tells the trans you want it to stay out of overdrive. For instance, you are driving in the mountains. Taking it out of overdrive does not give the engine more power, nor does it take any away. it simply tells the transmission to stay in main four forward gears and not to go into overdrive. If you are in alot of city driving, it may would be a good idea to turn overdrive off, to keep it from shifting in and out.
off in the city, a little more torquey and alot more fun!
All the OD does is takes what is going into the tranny and divides it by 0.75 (if I remember correctly). Basically a 1.33:1 final drive ratio. When its off its 1:1. This is why when you turn it off you see your RPMs shoot up.
For almost all driving conditions the transmission knows better than you. The "in the mountains" and "downhill" circumstances are appropriately OD-off territory. Usually.
I leave mine on unless I'm feeling racy, and actually downshift just like with a manual transmission. It's not necessary, usually, but fun and a useful skill that can be perfected, like any other.
Your car will be smart enough to put you in the right gear in almost any conditions; unless you are sure it's wrong, let it do the work.
In stop-and-go traffic, when quick acceleration is not necessary or possible, I sometimes put it in third and leave it there until the road clears: it moves out OK and doesn't have to do all that annoying shifting.
In downtown, going-to-be-a-stoplight-soon conditions, the transmission will work easier if you learn to anticipate traffic slowdowns, so you just motor gently along instead of doing all that annoying shifting.
I leave mine on unless I'm feeling racy, and actually downshift just like with a manual transmission. It's not necessary, usually, but fun and a useful skill that can be perfected, like any other.
Your car will be smart enough to put you in the right gear in almost any conditions; unless you are sure it's wrong, let it do the work.
In stop-and-go traffic, when quick acceleration is not necessary or possible, I sometimes put it in third and leave it there until the road clears: it moves out OK and doesn't have to do all that annoying shifting.
In downtown, going-to-be-a-stoplight-soon conditions, the transmission will work easier if you learn to anticipate traffic slowdowns, so you just motor gently along instead of doing all that annoying shifting.
Honestly, the only thing I've ever really noticed that stood out to me about the O/D off/on button was that with overdrive on, when you are accelerating on a freeway entrance ramp, when you stop flooring it, it shifts up into over drive to keep you in lower rpm's and save gas, with overdrive off, it just stays in whatever gear you are in.
I've never messed with it more than just turning it off when I wanted to accelerate hard and not have the car shift into o/d on me and slow me down.
I drive with it on 99.9% of the time. so you're probably fine just leaving over drive on and not thinking too much about it unless you are a hyper miler or something and are trying to squeeze every foot of drive time you can out of your gas tank (at which you probably wouldn't have gotten a mustang).
I've never messed with it more than just turning it off when I wanted to accelerate hard and not have the car shift into o/d on me and slow me down.
I drive with it on 99.9% of the time. so you're probably fine just leaving over drive on and not thinking too much about it unless you are a hyper miler or something and are trying to squeeze every foot of drive time you can out of your gas tank (at which you probably wouldn't have gotten a mustang).
The O/D switch on a car is installed by marketing so guys have something to play with. If you use your vehicle to tow, the O/D off button keeps you from burning up your transmission. I don't see a whole lot of travel trailers going down the road behind Mustangs. It is much like the Sport mode on electronic suspensions, the computer switches modes so fast that there is no difference, but marketing learned that guys wanted the switch. All you get is a rougher ride.
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