Using the Trans for Engine Braking?

[HammaMan]

My bet is that article was make a big generalization. Most passengers cars aren't probably are not designed for it(no idea of this is true, but id believe it). But like others have said the F150 was designed for it I think.

I know my engine brake kicks in a lot when in cruise control or in tow haul mode. I dont think they would add that to cruise control unless the transmission could handle it.


That being said, I was going down a really long steep hill on a forest service road this summer and had the transmission almost overheat.
I had it in 1st gear, the road was really bumpy I was only going about 10mph or under the whole way down. Halfway down I see my transmission temp has climbed way higher than I've seen it before.
So now as a precaution, I never use the engine brake through the manual mode. If I want engine breaking I put it in tow/haul or turn on cruise and let the computer handle it. I haven't had any issue that way. I'm assuming I was going way to slow for the transmission to properly cool itself.

You should have been in 4L for that. You didn't have enough RPM on the engine. Furthermore at that low of an RPM/speed, the TC might have been locking / unlocking increasing heat with an inadequate water flow to provide cooling to the heat exchanger as designed.

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[Stroodle96]

You should have been in 4L for that. You didn't have enough RPM on the engine. Furthermore at that low of an RPM/speed, the TC might have been locking / unlocking increasing heat with an inadequate water flow to provide cooling to the heat exchanger as designed.

I was wondering that after the fact if 4lo would of been okay. The issue was there was a lot of turns and the ground was very dry. I would think maybe dry dirt would still be okay to not cause too much binding. Good to know for the future. I did use 4lo recently when doing some easy but steep trails in Moab and the transmission did not overheat and I didn't have to use the breaks hardly at all.

 

[Snakebitten]

The additional RPM of 4lo at slow speeds spin the water pump at a better velocity. It's your only defense for no airflow through the radiator.

Were the fans noticeably cranked up?

 

[Ziggy73]

Edit: HammaMan beat me to it


"locked out" means removing those ratios from being available.

Use the +- buttons on the shifter to remove/add a ratio from availability.

I did notice when I geared down with mine, It did not have as much engine braking as my 5.4 V8, obviously due to the smaller engine and probably more influential was the turbos which probably reduce any engine braking that was left after the smaller engine. That being said since it has regen braking My way of gearing down that I've been taught over the last 40 years would change a little bit since riding the brakes is beneficial in certain instances. One thing that's nice is being able to see the transmission temp, so after gearing down for a long time I would keep my eye on that.

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