who feels that their gated shifter is harder changing from park to reverse? cause everything else is smooth, except for that....also, I still don't know what the point of the gated shifter is

 

yes, but it depends on how you park and if you use the parking brake--i think it's just for looks (sportier)

 

It looks sportier but it should also help manually shift without worrying about going too far.

 

Its all for adifferent look, I still like the shifter from the 3rd and 4th gens the most.

 

Though i admit it looks better i'm pretty sure it also has it's function.

As ripper mentioned, it's also to help regulate your shifting when you're 'in the mood'.

In my past car with the straight away /conventional auto shifter unless i take it easy or look at the shifter i tend to downshift one gear too many. Ditto goes with upshifting.

It's also a safety measure, given the 2k2 auto **** no longer has a manual override button the gates help keep the gear in place if accidentally hit. (Though this is a very unlikely situation)

 

By shifting maually in an automagic....isn't that harmful to the transmition

 

It also has little gains.

SuDZ

 

Agreed. There are little gains. I rented a 2k2 auto from Hertz this past weekend just to see if the convenience of an auto would overcome my need for speed/fun with a 6spd.

The best part of the gated shifter was the easy downshifts before entering turns. That was almost enough to bring me over to the sweet automagic...almost!

 

Why should it be? When you shift it's still ultimately up to the computer when the shift takes place.

The only advantage to manually shifting (e.g. when you absolutely have to) is when you want to redline each gear... like when you're on the track or just wish to do some spirited driving. Otherwise the ECU will just shift at 3k (light gas) or 5-5.5k (heavy foot).

And as everyone else does with their auto, to turn OD off (4th > 3rd)

 

i'm pretty sure the main point of a gater shifter is to eliminate the need for a button to move the shifter. Everyone seems to miss that. AND, about it being hard to get out of P. If you park it on a hill/up or down, the shifter is hard to move cuz the weight of the car is resting on the tranny(understand?). EVERY nissan i have driven(my 93 max, moms 98/01 altima) autos have ALL been hard to get out of park on a hill. They NEED to fix this. The flip side is to push it in N when parking, yank on the parking brake, then put it in P. Thats what i always do.

Mike S.

 

What do you mean "when you absoulutley have to".I just bought my first Maxima a 2002 auto.Is shifting like a manual bad for the automatics.Ive never had an automatic before so I was just wondering if this could wreck anything.Thanks for any help.

 

That was in reference to redlining, my point being if you're just cruising around downtown there's no sense in redlining each gear thus you'd just leave it in full auto mode.

If you're on the track then it makes sense to redline each gear (or at least close to it) thus you manually shift it.

Since it's still electronically controlled you don't actually shift it per se (like you'd shift a manual). Once you place the shifter in gear you'll still notice a few moments of lag - this is due to the computer "thinking" and "acting on it".

I guess in short you could say that manually shifting an auto is temporarily overriding the ecu's intelligence.

I may be wrong on certain points so take it with a few grains of salt.

 

TO me it helps when making nice sprints...120+ in 3rd will put you about 6K on the tac.
I also like poping it over into 3rd from D when some shmuck gets next to me and wont go away. Its kinda like downshifting and does "go" a little quicker when put in 3rd before stomping on the gas. Otherwise I seem to notice a hestatation.

 

what abt holding gear in parking lot? whenever you let go in parking lot it just shifts into 2nd then 3rd when u're crawing away. is that harmful to the tranny? just using it to hold a gear longer?

manual downshift is bad right like going from o/d off to 1 @ low speed?