It prevents your car from going into Overdrive when you turn it off. Its basically like not going into 5th gear in a 5 speed and staying in 4th the whole time.
Its pointless to mess with when it comes to racing your automatic.
hahahaha this has always been a fun one! ok if you look in your owners manual it will actually give you a tow weight rating and tell you to turn the over drive off if you equip your mustang with a tow package and plan to haul something. you can see video's of theas goofy dudes pulling youhauls and johnboats all day long on youtube. i have seen it myself a time or two and think its retarded lol
its the same as 4th gear, its just another gear. The reason its called overdrive is because the gear is smaller than 1:1 ratio (rpm wise). It makes no difference to drive in regular or without it, its just another gear.
I've heard and I practice turning the O/D off when in heavy traffic or using side roads that will not allow me to go over 40mph. It's great because instead of your gears changing too quickly, it will stay in 4th longer, hence, you can hit the gas on and off in slow traffic and stay in that gear longer. Just don't do what I do, once traffic picks up you gun it and forget to put it back on!!
It is best to leave it on...it allows the transmission to engage that final overdrive gear (4th) where the engine is running smoother and more efficiently.
I believe the overdrive gear ratio is less than 1:1. That means ~ 3/4" turn of the crank is a full turn of the output shaft...the driveshaft is turning faster than the engine = better fuel efficiency and less wear on the engine.
Generally if you are traveling on a steep downhill, towing a trailer, or crusing around in the city 40<mph, than o/d can be turned off...since you don't want the engine to shift into that 4th gear. You'll want it to stay in the lower gears longer rather than upshifting. When driving, I've noticed that the o/d will engage ~40 mph. So keep that in mind.
As far as racing...the only thing it will do is make the car louder...so if you're one of those people (usually guys with hondas and fart cannons) who think the louder the car is the faster, then you'll be happy
For example...with o/d on, with no indicator light in the message center, while going 60, you'll be running ~1800rpms.
With it off, with the little green "o/d" light on, you'll be around 2300 rpms...with exhaust the car will be louder, but you're are putting more strain on the engine and your mpgs will drop noticeably.
So while in town with traffic/lights going less than 40, it won't hurt to have it off.
While on the highway, leave it on.
If you want to increase the performance of your transmissoin...get a tuner with custom tunes that will increase the firmness and precison of shifts. It is like a difference between night and day on these autos...definitely something to look into if you're wanting to increase performance with an auto.
I'm Confused, When the light is on does that mean that the overdrive is off or on?? and when i ride hard like accelarating fast and braking hard, like the crazy driver i am, is it better to have it on or off. What about when i want to take my car over 100 MPH? better to have it off or on?? this would make things so much mor clear!
When the light is on the "od" is off. When you are driving crazy then it would feel better to have it off. If you plan on driving that fast and want to save gas a little bit then have the "od" on.
If i don't really care about gas milage would it then be better to have it off so that i can go into that 5th gear? or does the over drive being off prevent it from going into the 5th gear?
With od off it will prevent it to go into high gear but you will still be able to top out your car over 100 mph. You'll still be driving fast but at a much higher rpm.
Ok sounds good. Thanks so much for the help. I've been a member less than an hour and have read many threads and you've helped a lot of people out so i thank you for the help with me.
could be a wire bad, are you sure its not just the light thats bad? If you are in overdrive and you push the button does the car downshift?
another way to test is get in the car turn it on, push the OD button then pull it back in 3 and go driving get to speed and make sure its fully shifted out into 3rd then push it into D if it shifts again thats over drive
when i push the button absolutely nothing happens. i'll try the second part you suggested.
just thinking about it, i had made a thread about my cigarette lighter/power source not working because it keeps blowing fuses. could this be related? are they tied in together somehow?
The wire harness is tide in together under the dash near the radio, maybe the plug came undone or just losing contact. I have to play with my button sometimes, try pushing it allot it might just be the button.
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