1982 Mercedes Benz 300SD Turbo Diesel

"Sounds like a good buy to me. Most people don't know how to drive a diesel. If you need to accelerate hard, put it in low and keep your foot down, shifting up immediately when you feel the turbo cut in--ignore second, and go right to drive. The car won't respond immediately, but it will shift when it wants,"

How's this any different than simply putting it in drive to begin with and keeping the accelerator floored? In either case, is seems the car is going to shift when it wants to. All your doing is shifting from low to drive when your reach about 2500 RPMs and I would think the car is going to go through second on its way to drive regardless of whether you do this or let it do it's normal thing. Plus, I would think the car would accelerate faster going through 2nd, rather than skipping it, even if you could.

"and it should be much smoother than if you make the shifts by backing off the accelerator and shifting one gear at a time. There are a few things you can do under the hood to make shifting smoother if it's too hard, or tweak the turbo

cut-in point--check out the threads here on Groups. "

Shift by backing off the accelerator? Who here does that? And why would you back off at all, depriving the engine of max fuel, when you want hard acceleration? I just keep my foot on the accelerator and let the tranny do the shifting. Ain't that what an auto tranny is all about?

Reply to
trader4
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anybody in a 320 gas wanna play?

Charlie B, C320CDI 224HP, 510Nm Standard spec

Diesel engines didn't really have the same "pep" as gas-powered cars I can agree with.

Reply to
charles blassberg

You delay the upshift by putting your foot to the floor. Sometimes you want this, other times you don't. You can upshift by backing off if, for example, you have reached the crest of a hill, and prefer economy to torque. You can kick the turbo in quicker using less fuel if you start manually in low, then let the car upshift--your foot doesn't need to be on the floor. If you don't care how you use fuel or your brain, go ahead and put your foot to the floor.

Reply to
coolmale48

"If you don't care how you use fuel or your brain, go ahead and put your foot to the floor. "

Maybe you should define hard acceleration, which is the term you used:

"Most people don't know how to drive a diesel. If you need to accelerate hard, put it in low and keep your foot down, shifting up immediately when you feel the turbo cut in--ignore second, and go right to drive. "

To most of us, hard acceleration means you want max acceleration and aren't concerned about fuel economy, which is an entirely different subject, for the 15 secs it takes to accelerate.

"You delay the upshift by putting your foot to the floor. Sometimes you

want this, other times you don't."

Yes and the times you want it are called "hard acceleration", which is why you want to simply keep your foot to the floor and let the tranny do its thing.

Reply to
trader4

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