Even if your staying below 40 and not forcing rpms up automatics still just want to get to 5th and stay there as soon as it gets some distance.
Why shift to the highest gear when your barely making the first 4 do anything?
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If you let go of the gas, the default behaviour is to minimize how much speed you lose. At a mere 1000 RPM, even 5th gear (or any higher gear if you have it) isn’t very fast.
Engine RPM multiplied by gear ratio = wheel RPM. This is true even in an automatic, it’s just that the `=` symbol is a bit sloppy – so much so that you can have the engine running but wheels stopped. If you choose a lower gear, engine RPM goes up. If you’re not feeding the engine gas, it will want to come back down to 700-1000 rpm and it will drag the car’s speed down along with it. The transmission is trying to avoid that if it can. At highway speeds, 5th gear isn’t enough and you WILL lose speed this way. In fast-ish city speeds, it might be just the right engine speed, within tolerance.
(In a manual, the `=` is actually an equality as long as the driver is not pressing the clutch pedal.)
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