Making your Automatic car dance to your tune

The most common complaint and comment about an Automatic tranmission car, is that “You have less control over it, there is less involvement, compared to a manual transmission car”. Agreed, you can’t dictate the car to change to any gear that you please when you have an automatic transmission, but from my experience, I can tell you, if you know your know your car well enough, and if you are able to feel what it is doing, you can make even an automatic transmission car do whatever you please (well almost!).

First of all it’s possible due to the fact that most engine management system of today’s cars are intelligent and are based on a feedback system. The car does n’t just do pre-programmed actions irrespective of anything anymore, but on the contrary, listens to the driver input, tries to gauge the intention of the driver and tries to act accordingly, producing wonderful results almost always.

Next is your talent, how much you know your car and can undestand what it’s trying to tell you.

Downshifting in an Automatic car

Apart from the obvious manual change to”L” or “2″, the modern day cars downshift when you floor the throttle (full(open) throttle), provided the current revs of the engine can accomodate a higher rev as a result of a downshift. Imagine, you are cruising along at a rather relaxing speed of 70 km/hr in Overdrive(highest gear), when you need to pass a lorry in front of you, and an intersection is approaching, so it’s a case of now or never. But since you are in Overdrive, obviously you may not have enough acceleration to complete the overtaking manoeuvre before the intersection. No probs! You just floor the throttle, the car immediately shifts down to the previous(lower) gear, u get a jolt of acceleration, the next thing you know is you have passed the lorry at a speed of 90 km/hr. No more waiting for the speed to build up and no more nervous times during a pass

Warning: Do not ease the throttle(i.e., always keep it in full throttle) in the middle of the overtaking manoeuvre or else the car will upshift and lose acceleration and phew! you don’t want that to happen. So keep it floored till you have completed the overtaking.

Upshifting in an Automatic car

Now it’s not as straightforward as the downshift because here you have got to do all the work. The secret lies in judging if the rev (engine speed) is appropriate for an upshift and playing with the throttle. Generally, an automatic car upshifts to a higher gear in the start-middle of the rev band appropriate to the next higher gear. But sometimes we need power. So to prevent an upshift untill all the revs (max revs) at the current gear is utilised and you get maximum acceleration, floor the throttle and don’t ease it until it upshifts. But sometimes at higher speeds, not letting the car upshift will sometimes keep you in a low speed gear when you want speed and not torque. For that, just ease the throttle when you want an upshift. The engine management system(EMS) senses that since you are no longer in full throttle, you don’t the need the acceleration and torque and can upshift. Once it has shifted up, you can get back on the throttle (but not full throttle, else it might downshift again), and drive away. The beauty here is you can upshift almosy whenever you want to (i.e., at whatever rev you want to) by easing the throttle. But there is a limit to it. You can use this easing the throttle to upshift only when you are in the right rev band. If you ease the throttle too early (before the rev band of the next higher gear), the car will not upshift and you will just slow down, and if you don’t ease the throttle at all, it might not shift untill it hits the red line which might be unnecessary sometimes. It’s a delecate balance between speed and torque, and it’s a wonderful feeling when you get it just right.

When the driver sensitive EMS of the car, and your feel for the car work in tandom, you can make it dance to your tunes. It’s sometimes more challenging than a manual car because, there are no explicit levers to do anything, you are just overriding the car by thinking from it’s perspective.

My Vrrrooom Come True !!

Imagine, you are in love with a girl for 17 years, and one fine day, she accepts your love. That was the exact feeling I had when on Sunday, August 19, 2007, I went to a quiet residential area in Cholaimedu, got down from the taxi, shook hands with my “wizard”, and walked a few paces to see, my new love, my sparkling new “Passion Red” Hyundai Santro Xing XL Automatic, modified with hand operated controls, so that atlast after 17 years of gazing at, thinking about, breathing, eating and sleeping cars, I could not only own, but drive one. The one month long sleepless wait after I ordered the car is over! Phew! Hurrah!!

First the “wizard” proceeded to drive the car, to show me how the new controls work. Of course, I knew how it worked, having read about it in websites, it’s called the Alfred Bekker System. I loved cars so much that I had a massive and detailed knowledge about how a car works, the dynamics, the mechanical details, and of course, about the nuances of driving a car, the only thing left was to get in and drive, and get used to the behaviour of the car. Since, it was a residential area, he could n’t let me drive much, which I was furious about by the way. I didn’t come all this way to be a passenger in my car!. So he let me drive about 100 meters. Sat in, shifted the tranmission into “[D]rive” mode, and drove, was careful, not to get carried away though. The power steering was very light and agile but lacked feel. But, at once I felt comfortable with the controls and just as I had imagined, was confident that I could master the car in a matter of hours. This was my first ever time in the driver’s seat of a car!

A driver drove and brought the car back home, although I drove another 300 yards while approaching my home. Gazed at the parked car, and retired for the night.

The next morning, I drove the car to a ground, with my mom and dad(who also had never driven a car before), and started to put the car through it’s paces, to get a feel of the steering, throttle etc. I drove for about 30 min, driving through a virtual circuit, making turns and straights to get the feel of the car, then my dad took the wheels, and drove another 30 min, then we hit the road, drove slowly (at 10-20 km/hr!) around the houses, another 30 min-30 min session. After lunch, I felt really confident and I was in the groove, I started to effortlessly maneuver the car along the twisty bends and was taking corners with increasing confidence. Now, I was no longer feathering the throttle, it was full throttle time and hit 80 km/hr near a small straight piece of road near the beach, he he but immediately reduced the speed as my dad started to stare at the speedometer from the pillion seat coz we are not supposed to drive it @ more than 70 km/hr, in the run-in period of the car

My real dream come true came when on Saturday (6 days after I got my hands on my baby), I got a chance to go to Chennai, what an absolutely unforgettable experience, I got to drive on the beautiful ECR, for about 100 km, still I had to back off the throttle as it was still run-in period. But this Saturday, I got a chance to drive to Chennai again, this time around, the car was out of the run-in period, and so was I, he he. The open road!, a beautiful, peppy little car!, what more do I need? So when I got a chance on an empty stretch, I caned it and reached a speed of 125 km/hr. What an absolutely wonderful feeling to see the speedo in front of you, at that time! But don’t be under the impression that my driving is haywire. I am a perfectionist, be it the driving technique or the following the traffic rules, and total control is my mantra.:)

I have driven many of friends in my car, it is really a dream come true to drive them in my car, because, they have taken me in their cycles, and shoulders when I needed it.

By the way, last but not the least, the “wizard” who made my dream come true is:

Mr. Bhaskaran

NO 25, NEW MARKET STREET,
CHOOLAIMEDU,
CHENNAI - 600094

Mobile: 9841190690

To mention a few words about him, he is an obviously talented Automobile Engineer cum car modifier, who specialises in modifying cars for physically challenged people. He has modified more than 150 cars so far, with 100% success and satisfaction, including the top- guns like Mercedes Benz, using the Alfred Bekker system. For under just Rs 19,000 (this might be variable depending upon the car), he had fabricated and fitted custom built hand operated kit for the accelerator and brake and combined both into a single lever, which operates both, mutually exclusively, using a push-pull mechanism, which makes it fool proof. The whole process takes just about 4-6 days. As a client, I could not be any more happier with him, both as a car modifier and as a person. His work is impeccable, his manners, immaculate. He is a boon for physically handicapped people, atleast through out Tamil Nadu. He is a rare breed indeed, because, although there are many car modifiers in Chennai, finding such a car modifier for physically challenged people in Chennai, is like finding a pearl in a haystack. (Ya he is a Pearl!).