Welcome Visitor! Please take a few seconds and 
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2012
- Messages
- 3,918
- City
- Southwestern Idaho
- Vehicle Year
- 1987
- Engine
- 2.9 V6
- Transmission
- Manual
- Total Lift
- 0
- Total Drop
- 0
- Tire Size
- 215/70-R14
- My credo
- 19K, 19D, 92Y, 88M, 91F....OIF-III (2004-2005)
Some of them will manually downshift immediately some will do so when they feel like it and with a 10 speed automatic transmission with close ratio gears you'll quickly realize in order for it to actually start doing any sort of braking you've downshifted 6 gears at least before you feel it start having any hold back to it. As far as damage, eventually it will damage something if it starts slamming through gears as its shifting, who knows when that will be with today's electronics its hard to really predict. If you are towing and need the engine to hold you back, you should have been in a lower gear at the top of the hill in the first place usually the same gear you went up the hill in, or one gear lower. The manual mode isn't a manual transmission mode, its just a gimmick to make people feel cool, in some vehicles it acts like a manual transmission with an automatic clutch but the Ranger isn't one of those. It just tells the computer to not let it shift above whatever gear you manually select, it still shifts through all the gears up to the gear you locked it out of. So if you select 4th gear it'll shift 1st through 4th gear only. Unlike some older automatics where if you selected say 2nd gear it stayed in 2nd gear regardless. Today's automatics shift through them all up and down regardless what gear you've chosen. Not sure if the new Rangers do it or not but some don't even use 1st gear on takeoff under certain conditions, or you manually have to select 1st gear if you want to use 1st.
The paddle shift on the Mustang does the same thing as the buttons on the gearshift in the ranger does. Some vehicles have a dual clutch automatic which allows people to act cool manually shifting through the gears but they're not made for the easy driving that people tend to do, those dual clutch automatics are made to get on the gas and go not lollygag around its burning up the clutches as a result.
My aunt has 4 of the new Rangers already awaiting replacement engines with less than 1,000 miles on them. The Transmission issues in the Fiestas and other cars having the shuddering problems with those dual clutch transmissions are caused by improper driving burning up the clutches, even though its an automatic car it still has clutches in it to make it shift manually and the way people are driving them is tearing up the clutches resulting in the shuddering and other related issues. I guess they're replacing the transmissions once for the customer and warning them that their driving technique is what caused the problem, and how to correct the driving technique to prevent it from reoccurring. The best fix is to leave the automatic an automatic and if you want to manually shift then buy a car with a manual transmission LOL.
