hey guys.....i never knew wut overdrive is. What is it and what does it do?

 

overdrive is to engage 4th gear, so that the engine will not burn as much gas, on a 5spd overdrive is the 5th gear.

 

your max is a four speed automatic. with overdrive off, it will only shift up to third gear. with overdrive on, it'll shift into fourth. and correct me if i am wrong, but with od on, it actually shifts at 6100 instead of 6500 in 1st. basically, leave od on if you want to conserve a bit of gas, leave it off for city driving and racing

 

Turning on overdrive (button pressed in) lets you access 4th gear. Turning it off (O/D light off on the dash) will lock out fourth gear.

Read the owners manual. It explains it very well.

 

koo so if i wanna accerlate faster turn it off until 4th gear?

 

Leaving it on or off has no effect on acceleration whatsoever!!!

 

There's more to it than that.

You could turn the input shaft of a transmission exactly 360 degrees and count the number of degrees the output shaft turns. If the output shaft turns less than 360 degrees, that gear ratio is an underdrive. If the output shaft turns more than 360 degrees, that gear ratio is an overdrive. The 4Gen Maxima 5-speed transmission actually has two overdrives! Both 4th and 5th are overdrive ratios. These are the actual gear ratios, taken from the factory service manual:

1st 3.250
2nd 1.850
3rd 1.272
4th 0.954
5th 0.795

 

from what i experience in my car, with od off, i will go up higher in first then with od on.