A lot of these videos on YouTube shows people downshifting and you can hear that sweet sound from the exhaust.

Is that possible to do on an automatic?

 

Automanual helps

 

 

Also if you do a panic stop the AT will automatically drop down a couple gears to help to slow you down, that can be pretty shocking the first time you do it (especially if it is a true panic stop).

 

In DS mode I downshift all the time. 09 g37 7spd auto. I also do this up and down for excelleration. No worries. I've done this with all of my previous cars.

 

I don't have paddle shifters but I guess I can put it into manual and use the shift ****.

When downshifting do I still push on gas? Almost feels like I'm going stall the car or something lol

 

Yes you can still keep pushing on the gas, pretty much the whole purpose to accelerate, I usually have to downshift 2 gears on DS Mode because one isn't just enough

 

The G has fail safes such as the rev limiters to keep you from destroying the car. I wouldn't routinely do a lot of hard downshifting to slow the car unless you're tracking or the brakes alone won't get you there. The rev-matching does a nice job of reducing the harshness and the drive train does handle abuse pretty well but it will take a toll over time on bushings, u-joints, etc.

 

Thanks guys, very helpful. I tried it tonight and it sounded pretty awesome. Probably won't do it ever again though.

 

The Auto-Manual mode is there to allow you to shift up and down even with an automatic. You don't have to be afraid to have fun with your car. Unless you're truly beating on it nothing bad will happen.

 

Funny thing is that i was doing this for the 2nd time ever in my car on tuesday. I usually downshift when i think it's in a good range to down shift without it spiking upward. I started to smell something like a slight burning so i kinda panicked and threw it back in drive mode....when i came to think about it, i think it was an older pickup truck in front of me that i was smelling because when i got to a stretch of open road i returned back to DS mode and never smelled it again. Fun using the paddles as an alternate though.

 

^^^^ brake pads are cheaper than automatic transmissions.

the only time i downshift to slow down is if i am potentially passing a cop at a higher-than-posted speed limit and i don't want to light up the brake lights (obvious guilt!)

the only gripe i have about the G37 tranny is that when going down hills it won't let you upshift very far - i do this in the Evo all the time to "coast" down hills. i almost have to hit the gas to go down hills sometimes with the G37 because the gear its in is too low to just "roll" down the hill.

 

Haha, I do the same thing with highway police being spotted, waze letting me know of a trap or when my Escort starts alerting me to bogeys.

I however guilt of letting the car slow itself down via gearing, mainly if I am cruising on the highway in regular 'D' mode (I have 3.9 gears, so that's why), I'll flip over to DS mode which raises the revs a bit, slows the car down slightly to squash some momentum and then coast so to speak to pace traffic in front of me.

I have done a gear down or two in manual mode to help with braking, but that for immediate brake situations that rev-matching via a hard brake scenario from high gears isn't quick enough, very irregularly though.

 

The G has a very durable auto transmission.

I had a G35 coupe for 4 years.. Drove it in nothing but manual mode for 50K miles. Still drove like new.
my 08 G37, before it was totaled, I drove it 90% of the time in MM. Still drove like new after 104K.
For the most part however , I let the car do the downshifting when slowing to a stop. But I control all of the accelerating shifts. If i am in rush hour stop/go traffic however I keep it in auto until the road opens up.

 

I frankly don’t understand why anyone would buy an automatic and manually shift the gears all the time.

It reminds me of the story of the Sears customer who bought a power chain saw guaranteed to knock down ten trees per day. About a week later he returned the saw, looking dirty and spent, complaining it took him a whole week to cut down ten trees. The salesman took the saw and said, “Let me see what’s wrong here.” He fired up the saw and heard the usual BUZZZZZZZZ sound. The customer looked bewildered and said, “What was that noise?”