Switching from Automatic to Manual in Sand Dunes

[Vishnu Ramankutty]

With my Toyota Fortuner 2023 automatic, I'm wondering if I need to switch the gear to manual while going off-road in deserts. I've seen some videos suggesting that switching to manual mode when driving in sand can lead to better performance and help on avoiding transmission issues ( Heating Transmission ).  Being a Newbie driver, do in need to focus on this or it's just for experts who rule the sand dune terrain  

Help be on this.... 

[Gaurav]

Hi Vishnu, you should always drive any automatic car in Auto gear in the desert.

Auto is 90-95% able to do whatever you want them to do and the more you drive on Auto, the Auto will learn the downshift pattern and be able to serve 95-98% of the time.

Only 1-5% of the time we use manual 1st gear for long hill climb if the gearbox upshift from 1st to 2nd.

Main advantages:

• You will never over-run any gear by mistake.
• Auto will efficiently serve you with the best gear as per the rpm.
• You will have one less thing to worry and stay focused on desert driving skills.

In short, your Auto gearbox is safer, more efficient and long-lasting in  Auto mode. 

[Pavel Pashkovskiy]

[Benjamin]

Hi @Vishnu Ramankutty I totally agree with @Gaurav automatic should serve you very well with most of all off-road situations. 
 
personally I do use my manual tiptronic option on my wrangler as it allows me to have full control over the car and which gear it is in within relation of the RPMS.

(Note you should have no problem doing automatic all the way to intermediate).

 

Using tiptronic can help you control large climbs but for the most part auto will assist you. 

if you plan on using auto-manual I highly recommend using it on normal roads to understand more thoroughly when to shift and what your car is comfortable doing. This is only because tiptronic will put more stress on your transmission and engine using low gears to climb dunes (note: I don’t recommend “slamming” the rpm’s ensure you always steer down when you’ve lost momentum to ensure safety of you and your car.) 

In the wrangler I find starting in 2nd to gain maximum torque then shifting down to 1st tends to impact the best. However every car is different  

I hope this helps from someone who uses auto and tiptronic  
 

Edited July 26, 2023 by Benjamin

[Frederic]

Tiptronic can be useful if you have a sluggish auto gearbox. I remember on Vanessa her Pajero that gearbox was always up and down shifting at the most inappropriate times and I see same behavior on my Y61 patrol. As I came from driving manual i still prefer it. Except for Newbie level or Overlanding drives of course that’s where “D” does it for me  

[M.Seidam]

I agree with all of the above 

automatic enabled transmission cars are designed to be in auto mode for most situations as the car learn the style of the driver and adjust by time . However the manual mode option can be useful in some short lived specific situations when a sustained Torque / power needed to get you from point A to point B such as steep climb or descent especially in sand , sustained speed and control over longer time riding a ridge or side slope or while recovering yourself from a stuck while in low gear . 

for sure it’s incomparable to the manual transmission cars where the synchronisation between the right hand on the stick , left foot on the clutch and right foot on gas is , I would say , another unique skill to acquire in sand driving which quite fun as well 

[Sunil Mathew]

Just to add some car specific feedback,  as a  Fortuner owner myself (2014 ,V6) , I drive in "manual" gear, mainly because I like to be in control of my gearshifts. Vehicle controlled upshifts are not advisable when climbing long and steep dunes. In the older version of the car like mine, the "manual" gear selects the max top gear allowed. Eg. If you are in M4, it is same as D and the car up/down shifts with the max gear being M4. If you are in M3, the car up/down shifts automatically with max gear allowed being M3, ie. it wont upshift to M4 even if you hit the rpm limiter (resulting in the rat-a-tat-atata exhaust sound, if you have noticed) .

So , in effect you are actually selecting your allowable top gear, while still allowing "auto" gear shifts within the range . Probably the same in all cars.

Specifically speaking, i choose HL on transfer case, and toggle between M2 and mainly M1 for higher level drives with lot of climbs. For lower level drives with  flat areas and low dunes, M3 will do fine, but M4 is not so comfy for me.

I have tried LL occasionally, toggling between M4 and M3 just to get a feel of it , and felt more grounded overall.

[Stumpy]

This is probably a topic that has been bashed around hundreds of times 😂

I would tend to disagree that it should be in auto, on the sand I nearly always use manual mode, only on long flat runs I will put it back into auto.

the main reasons are control, engine braking and to save wear/heat in The transmission.

1. A automatic transmission can not predict what you are about to do so it will select a gear based on what the current needs are. This is great if you are on the road and the main concern is engine efficiency, not so good if you’re half way up a dune get a bit of wheel spin and decides to up shift.

2. When descending and the load comes off the transmission again it can upshift right when you need the engine braking to control your descent. A safety issue as the car starts to run away, you instinctively hit the brake and over you go.

3. A auto is a fluid pump, it works by converting hydraulic pressure into torque. It does this by pumping fluid through a torque converter. At low speed this converter is allowed to slip to allow the engine to build rpm. This slip is what generates the heat in the fluid. At higher speeds and in manual mode there is less slip and in some cases the converter will lock up. By driving in manual mode you control the slip and stop some of the heat being generated. Therefore you can stop your transmission overheating or getting damaged.

I have seen many Pajeros suffer from the over temp gearbox, never had mine come  anywhere near to the limit, all of them were driving in auto.

just my 2c, happy to be proved wrong.

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by Stumpy Paj

[Vishnu Ramankutty]

 

Thank you all @Gaurav  @Pavel Pashkovskiy @Benjamin @Frederic  @M.Seidam @Sunil Mathew @Stumpy Pajfor the valuable feedback based on your experience. For now, I'll stick with what I'm doing, which is driving in automatic mode. As I gain more control over the vehicle, I will gradually start trying out these manual shift. I hope by the time I might be an expert on off roads. 

Once again, thank you all for these valuable pieces of advice. 

[topgear]

I only started driving in manual at the later stage of F+. During newbie and fewbie I drove with auto so that I could focus more on the terrain and driving. 
 
When I drive in auto, at more challenging terrain or softer sand I could feel that the auto box is hunting for gears which can be frustrating at times.