I was flipping through the manual for my 89 accord and it has two seconds for the recommended shifting speeds: normal acceleration and cruise from acceleration. What's the difference?

 

Language suggests possible translation error. Acceleration or deceleration? "Cruise from Acceleration" makes no sense to me.

Two secs sounds like reasonable speed for manual shift which is probably whats intended. Easier on synchronizers.

good luck

 

I've been driving manual transmission vehicles for 40 years, but wonder what the term 'Cruise from acceleration' means, as did the op in this post. Looking at the manual for my '99 Accord the shift points for the cruise mode are at a lower speed than normal. I tend to shift in between the two,

For example, in normal acceleration the recommended shift point to 4th gear is 41 mph, while in cruise from acceleration it's 33 mph. Not planning on changing how I shift, it just would be good to know the 'Cruise from acceleration' term meaning.

I do like the somewhat tall gearing in my Accord.. 65 mph is approx 2475 rpm which provides a quiet highway ride. Although I came very close to buying a manual transmission CR-V, the gearing is considerably shorter resulting in about 3200 rpm at 65 mph. I suppose the engineers had good reasons to choose that gearing.

 

Quite honestly, there is no such a thing as one (or even two) optimal shift point; if you're tooling around at light throttle, it could be anywhere between 1,500 and 2,200, however, an easy run up an on-ramp might see a shift point closer to 4,500 per gear; then there is the *****-to-the-wall approach where you shift as close to redline as possible. You also need to consider the gear you're moving into, the lower the gear (and throttle setting) the lower the acceptable RPM for shifting. In our cars I can easily shift from first to second when under very light throttle when the RPMs are as low as 1,500 with no resultant engine lugging; if I was to try that going into top gear, the engine would lug heavily.

 

Agreed, many variables come into play. Today's automatics tend to return slightly better fuel economy than the same vehicle with a manual. The '99's manual is rated slightly better for mpgs than the automatic, being a basic 4 speed in that generation. With about 70-75% highway driving my last average was 28.8 mpg, Not bad at all IMO and slightly exceeding the EPA's highway rating. I attribute that to having the 5 speed manual. 20 years or so ago it wasn't uncommon for manual transmission vehicle owners to slightly exceed the EPA ratings.

I try to keep rpms 3k and under, also try not to go under 1500 rpm, especially as you said in the higher gears. If I won the lottery it's good to know Honda still offers the manual transmission in the new Accord Sport - at least they did in the 2019 model. Manual transmissions are becoming ever so rare, sad IMO.

 

Agreed. I find my self fussing about what my next car will be after the TL wears out (no signs of that happening yet). I've actually considered shopping for an "off-lease" 2018 BMW 340i M-Sport 6MT (the last year for three pedals under the dash of a 3-Series) in late 2020 or early 2021 and putting it on ice until the Acura is done.

Funny thing about fuel economy, my 2006 TL 6MT gets considerably better fuel economy than my 2001 V6 Accord EX. The best mileage I ever got with the Accord was 30.5 mpg on a long highway trip with the cruise control set to about 75 mph; last fall I ran the TL well over 500 (534.8 and 516.8 miles) miles on two consecutive tanks of fuel, also at about 75 mph; the two tanks worked out to 35.9 and 35.5 mpg respectively.

 

Your 28.8 sounds a lot like my wife's 00 Accord sedan out on a road trip. 'll set the cruise at 78 to 80, and with the AC on just eat up the miles. We made back to back to back trips in a couple of years ago, and it got 27-29 mpg average on all the trips. That's with a fully loaded down car with 3 adults and luggage for 5 days. My 99 Accord sedan spends most of it's time in the city or rural areas. The cruise works from 26mph on up in 5th gear too.

 

Your '99 Accord sounds very similar to mine. I'm very satisfied with those fuel economy numbers. How do you determine where your car was made.. I assume a letter in the VIN?
Getting 27-29 mpgs with all that weight is impressive, especially at those speeds.

 

IT's probably a similar car then. The VIN will tell you where it's made, although the door jamb sticker has "made in Japan" on it. They're very similar to the Ohio built cars, just some of the bits are made by someone else (air cleaner box for example.
Yeah, I didn't think it was too bad, especially with an AT in it. We got that kind of mileage going from eastern Michigan to North Texas, and the hills in Missouri aren't exactly gas mileage friendly. But then it did only have 226K miles on it at the time. Now it's closer to 240K miles, and still running strong. She loves it. The big difference between hers and mine (other than 1 year) is that hers has ABS, while mine doesn't.