V70: Engine Car doesn't decelerate

[ferg55]

Originally Posted by apersson850

If you are behind the lorry, going slowly, you don't need any lower gear to keep up.

In the examples I gave, the rev's drop so low they are below the point where the torque is enough to keep the car moving easily. It will keep up, of course, but with lots of torque converter slip at the slightest prod of the accelerator, and lots of turbo lag once the converter locks up again. Its clearly in too high a gear, and changing down manually resolves all of that (and just feels instinctively correct).

[apersson850]

Either we perceive them completely different, or there's a significant difference between individual cars in these series.
Admittedly there seems to be a difference in how stock engines and the Polestar versions interact with the automatic gearboxes.

[Tatsfield]

Originally Posted by yostumpy

OK, confused no. My 2016 D5 has the manual option, so when I flick the lever over, it drops a gear, and an S +/- comes up on the dash.

a) Is there a 'sport' mode as welll as 'manual' , or

b) are they the same thing.

If a) then please explain, as I feel I may be missing something in my driving pleasure.

To get to the manual gear selection you have to move the selector left into Sports and then push it backwards and forwards to make the gear changes. This makes it a function of Sports mode rather than sitting in Shopping mode. However, if you just leave the selector to the left in Sports mode, the box continues to make the gear changes for you but adopts different change points to enhance the acceleration of the car4. Your 2016 car seems to behave better than my 2012 as when you select Sports it drops a cog ready for action. Mine does not.

[apersson850]

No, manual gear selection is not a function of Sports mode.
To begin with, there was Drive in the straight track and manual selection to the side. I write "to the side" here, since the side has shifted over the years, and it's probably different for left and right hand drive as well.

So two modes, automatic in Drive and manual to the side, labeled + and - at the gear selector. In the display it showed numbers instead of D.

The came the sports mode. To begin with only with T6, but later with more engine options.
Now you got three modes.
Drive in the straight line.
Sports mode with the selector to the side only.
Manual mode if you started pushing the selector forward/backward whilst in the side track.

In the display you now could see D, S or the digits 1-6. To return from manual mode to Sports mode you had to go back to Drive, then over to Sports again.
Later, with the TFT display, you got the S+/- light in the display to indicate that you are out in the Sports/manual track, and the digits 1-6 shows up beside the speedometer if you start selecting gears manually.

Note that the box is always automatic.
In Drive mode, it will select all gears automatically, depending on speed and load.
In Sports mode it does the same, but with quicker gear change and generally selecting one gear lower than in Drive. If you have paddles on the steering wheel, they'll also work differently in Drive and Sports mode.
In Manual mode, it will still change gears automatically, but only when you exceed the driveable limits for the engine. Mine shifts down at around 1100 r/min and shifts up at about 4500 r/min. If you have a petrol engine the shift points will be different.

The reason you may confuse Sports mode with manual mode is that Sports mode is an afterthought. At Volvo, they took the decision to implement it as a software thing only, so they didn't have to change the gear selector, to provide a special Sport position. That's why it shares position with the manual selection, and cars like my 2102 has no indication whatsoever that you can select Sports mode. You can only see the indicators for that there's a manual selection mode. Not until you move the gear selector there will the S in the display hint about that there's something more than just the manual selection mode out there.

[Tatsfield]

A long and interesting reply but I have to say that sitting in the driver seat in my XCV70, to change gears "manually" you move the lever into sports mode, see the S come up on the dash display and can then push it backwards and forwards to select gears.

Whatever the history of the gearbox and whatever other cars may have, on mine you still have to push the selector into sports mode, see the S come up on the dash and then select gears. So from my perspective and when I'm advising others, I can only say that selecting gears is done from sports mode and that is the most understandable way of advising anyone. Why would Volvo have the S come up if the lever wasn't in sports mode? The fact that the display then changes to show the gear selected doesn't remove the fact that you can't select any gear without putting the lever in the S position! Dropping down a gear or making an up-change after using a low gear is part of sports driving and so it is not unreasonable to say that the gear selection is part of the sports mode system rather than a function related to simple automatic economy driving.

I'm not labouring this point for the sake of an argument but merely to show why I made the statement as part of a post giving easily understandable simple advice on how to drive the car.

[Ian21401]

My daughter has an XC70 automatic. As described above, when the selector is moved to the left the S is displayed. Only when the selector is moved forward or back is the actual gear selected displayed. We have found that when the selector is moved forward from S the gear selected is displayed BUT it feels as if the gearbox has changed down a gear from whatever gear it was in when the display showed S.
Is it possible that if the selector is left in S mode then the gearbox is in fact in Sport mode and will react accordingly if the selector is left in that position. If the selector is then moved then the gearbox is moved out of Sport mode and into Manual mode.
Neither she nor I like this arrangement. Her previous car was a V50 with a geartronic auto box BUT when the selector was moved to the left the display showed whichever gear that the box was in at that time and there was no discernible gear change until the selector was moved. No Sport mode.
This is why I suggest that Sport mode and Manual mode are separate modes.

[yostumpy]

I didn’t realize that moving the lever to the left made it ‘sport auto’ I’ve never tried it like that, only moved over to manual select. Something else to try out when it gets a bit cooler. So effectively the car has 3 different modes.

[griston64]

Originally Posted by yostumpy

I didn’t realize that moving the lever to the left made it ‘sport auto’ I’ve never tried it like that, only moved over to manual select. Something else to try out when it gets a bit cooler. So effectively the car has 3 different modes.

Mine does

[ferg55]

My 2008 doesn't have the sports automatic "S" mode. I always thought I wanted it, until I read this and another thread a few months ago which explained that moving the lever over to "S" would no longer hold the 'box in the gear you were in (ready for me to change when I wanted) but remained in automatic mode, albeit dropping a gear. I ask myself if this is what I would want? For me, moving over to manual mode intuitively and immediately holds the box in the gear it's in, and I am reassured that only I can then change the gear, e.g. after overtaking that slow tractor or accelerating onto a motorway. Having the box change gear just before that critical moment (or the risk of) isn't something I'm comfortable with. Yes, I could induce manual mode by shifting up or down, but then I'd have to shift back to where I was - that's too complicated. How do others with "S" mode find this in practice?

edit: this seems aligned to Ian's view above.
edit 2: mine does have a sports mode of sorts, induced by quickly stabbing the throttle about 20% and returning to where it was - this will change down and leave in that lower gear for a while, and hold each gear for longer thereafter regardless of throttle input. It will revert back to normal after a minute or so if you drive normally. It takes some practice but can be mastered :-)

[Tatsfield]

Originally Posted by Ian21401

My daughter has an XC70 automatic. As described above, when the selector is moved to the left the S is displayed. Only when the selector is moved forward or back is the actual gear selected displayed. We have found that when the selector is moved forward from S the gear selected is displayed BUT it feels as if the gearbox has changed down a gear from whatever gear it was in when the display showed S.
Is it possible that if the selector is left in S mode then the gearbox is in fact in Sport mode and will react accordingly if the selector is left in that position. If the selector is then moved then the gearbox is moved out of Sport mode and into Manual mode.
Neither she nor I like this arrangement. Her previous car was a V50 with a geartronic auto box BUT when the selector was moved to the left the display showed whichever gear that the box was in at that time and there was no discernible gear change until the selector was moved. No Sport mode.
This is why I suggest that Sport mode and Manual mode are separate modes.

Yes. If you put the lever into the left position and the S comes up on the dash, you are on sports mode and the gear changing parameters change to more sporty ones. You can leave the lever there to maintain sports mode. The manual selection is a further process achieved by pushing the lever either backwards or forwards. To leave sports mode, whether in a selected gear on just un sports auto mode, you have to push the level; to the right and the D displays on the dash to show that you are back in standard Drive.

apersson850 is absolutely correct that the box will not allow over revving the gears when manually selected and overrides the selection to protect the engine.

The more complex an autobox becomes the more ways there are to use it so that the electronic control of the transmission is augmented by the human control of the driver. Or you can just leave it in drive and never think about it.