Diff between Auto Tranny and Sport Shift Tranny?

[WayneTeK]

Is there an actual difference to a sport shift and regular auto w/o sport shift?

For instance, just shifting by putting into D1, D2, D3, and D4.... Isn't that the same as a sport shift??

 

[Action Jackson]

The Sport Shift has better electronics so that it will NOT downshift if it suspects you'll go past the redline.

http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/hl/03protege5.htm

Having said that, I'd rather manually shift a straight gate auto [which I did a lot on an older Civic] than use this sport shift. Just a personal thing.

 

[aschoen]

I have the sport AT trans. I'm not sure if it's that much better or not. It's nice in stop and go traffic to manually shift between 1st and second gear, or just leave it in 2nd (less jerky then having the tranny pick what gear your gonna be in, and sometimes getting confused) don't need to use the brakes at all. As for it acting similar to a manual transmission, it's pretty far from that. There is a pretty large time lag between shifting and the actual gear change, so you have to shift and floor it a second or two before you actually want to shift gears.


Anton

 

[NAYo2002]

I have never seen a car with all D1, D2, D3, and D4.

 

[prote5]

My old 95 Civic EX had it.... D1-D4

 

[spazspike]

I've only seen 2-3-D (recently)

I find the advantage with the sport shift to be minimal and have only used it infrequently. My biggest complaint with the automatic for the Protege5 is the lack of 5th gear. While not a problem under normal driving, on long highway trips being at 2100rpm versus 3100rpm (cruising speed of 70mph) would mean much better MPG in the long run.

 

[dficken]

The model number is actually different btwn the sport shift and standard auto. They are....

Sport Shift Auto- FDA5-19-090A
Regular Auto - FDA4-19-090A

I also talked to a mazda parts guy. He "assumed" that the sport shift had beefier parts since you would be downshifting with it.

But to be honest, I am not 100% sure either way.

 

[WayneTeK]

I heard that using the sport shift will give your tranny a lot more problems earlier than not using it at all...

Some memebers i think advised against using the SPORT SHIFT feature because it will cause problems a lot earlier, say 20,000miles ~ 30,000miles...