Yes, you asrecorrect, VB. Pedal pressure.
They have referred to the process mentioned by the BMW engineers several timesin the Tech Correspondence column, iirc.Essentially you accelerate hard (2/3-3/4 throttle) until you reach a point where you can shift to a higher gear. If accelerating up hill, that rpm level would be much higher than if you were driving down hill, etc, but get into the next gear ASAP. Clearly I don't always follow that line of thinking myself as I do like to rev this car into the higher band, and in traffic sometimes I feel I have to just to get away from the stupids, as I like to call them.
It should also work for an automatic, though you may have to "force the shift" by lifting briefly, or lift-throttle, also sometimes called drop-throttle which is rather confusing.

 

Gracias for the insight. Rememberthe M3 hasthevery 21st century automatic w/sport shift. Forcing the shift is accomplished with a flick of the wrist!

 

I'd been experimenting with pedal pressure to see if I could force a shift, but I never knew it really did anything.

 

I wasspeaking about fullyautomatic mode, which I think is VB's only option. You (Uber) have the option to chose because of Mazdas tip-tronic manual shift mode.
Most autos will hold the gear (up to a point) depending on how much power you are calling for. Hard on the accelerater (usually)= higher rpm's between shifts. Lighter on the pedal= lower shift points. So if you're accelerating hard, butdon't want to wind her out completely, and you want the tranny to shift at a given point, lift off for a short time until the tranny shifts up.
See what mean? That's how all the autos I've ever driven worked.

 

I thought all Mazda 3 autos had tiptronic. Doesn't VB drive a Mazda3? If he's not driving a Mazda3, why is he here?

 

as far as i know all the mazda3s autos have tip tronic. well perhaps the older ones didnt i dont know. and VB had a mazda6 but got fed up with it over a bunch of **** the dealership put him through and now he hasa malibu. but he still enjoys chatting it up about cars. which is cool.

 

He's aslo got a sail attached to the car, wind eneergy, green. i am late to this thread, my mpg is 26.7 mostly local.
________
Medical Marijuana

 

Driving down to Palm Springs to my inlawsfor Thanksgiving I averaged 31 MPGat an average speed of 78 MPH.

 

wife car.... city driving only... she's getting an avg of 22.7 in the city. ... ... this car rocks!.. .. in about 2 weeks, we'll be going to dallas(first road trip in this car) i should have a better idea of hwy driving!.. hopfully over 30!!


man, and my JMD yellow fogs set those HID's off!!! .sick!!!

 

That's basically it.

My Malibu has a manual option for the first 3 gears (I believe they used a 3 speed with a 4th gear overdrive tranny for this car), but I don't use it unless I'm messing about it first & second - if I try to leave it in third for city driving, I can hear it shifting anyway, but still reading 3rd gear...it's an odd transmission.