@mnementh I also looked at one of these calculator kits last year and decided against it, however I may just review that decision to break the boredom up.
With regard to leaving the AT in sport mode, I have to oppose your view in that it makes no difference in mpg, it actually drags the mpg down to a lower figure, causes more pollution, and that is something that we should all be looking to reduce for the sake of the planet, plus it also makes far more noise pollution as well. My car has Driving and Sports mode on the transmission, and driving in sports mode, the car is still in 2nd gear at 30mph and around 2,500rpm and the noise level is much higher than leaving it in D mode and the transmission is in 4th at 30mph with just 1600rpm and the mpg figure is greatly reduced as is engine wear and CO2 emissions.
Traction and stability control are always ON by default and I have only ever switched it off a couple of times and there is so much torque available that it is very easy to pull wheel spin when pulling away and also acceleration is noticeably quicker with it off once wheel spin has stopped.
Even in snow, I leave it in the on setting and provided you have a gentle right foot, no problems pulling away on snow. Besides over here our insurers are always looking for ways to avoid paying on a claim, that I'm sure, that should you have an accident with the traction off, that they would refuse to honour the policy, claiming that was a major contributing factor to the accident. As to cracking the CPU, that would unless you declared it prior to insuring the car and accepting a punishing premium as a result, render your policy null and void when their inspectors discovered it after an accident.
Maybe on your vehicle... not this one. I've literally logged weeks at a time in both modes... as I said, unless I deliberately mat it all the time, the overall fuel economy doesn't change to any statistically significant amount. Modern vehicles all run in closed-loop mode all the time... even cold-start, nowadays. They do not switch out for any reason without posting a MIL and setting a code. That means it is burning clean, no matter which mode it is in.
This is not a Cayenne or somesuch that has an Economy mode just to satisfy emissions legislation and insurance companies... it's a pregnant Camry, FFS. "Sport" mode increases the shift points aboot 200 rpm at the most, and it makes the shift firmer. Period. That little bit makes a lot of difference in how "tight" the car feels, and I'll make that decision for myself, thank you.
As for reprogramming the CPU... I've been doing that for decades, I still have my certifications from when I worked at the dealership, and I WILL turn off the seat-belt bitch-a-majig, and I will make traction control normally off if I feel like it. These are things you can turn on or off at a dealership level already; I just don't feel like paying them to do it on a car that isn't mine.
You are welcome to make these choices in your vehicle... as I do in my own.
Cheers,
mnem
@Spec & Dragon, you both make good points and where you have differences are things where I have seen both.
I have made reference to a moose in other posts, and from that experience I can certainly confirm that insurance companies will go to some extent to deny claims. Their business is bean-counting after all, not looking after drivers and vehicles. Here in the GWN you do not want anything than can be made into an obvious link (not necessary accurate or with cause and effect) between modification/modes and damages.
I have had an AT vehicle that actually got better economy and better manners when sport mode was enabled. Economy and normal modes were the same as best I could tell including long-term fuel consumption calculations.
The current replacement for that one is quite the opposite; normal mode gets economy similar to much smaller vehicles (it will shut off half the cylinders when not needed) and sport mode increases fuel consumption by 50% driving gently. Better results were achieved by parameters changing automatically when choosing 2wd or various 4wb modes, or by disabling the top gears.
My conclusion is it depends on the particular vehicle design.
Traction control is much the same in my experience; it is different for each vehicle. I have done lots of informal experiments with pushing the limits of traction on a number of vehicles.
I do leave the systems turned on for regular driving; off for special driving occasions.
The 2018 Subaru is a surprise. The traction control system engages almost the exact same time that I would take my own corrective action. In most cases, the car does what I would want it to do. The exceptions are where the car does what is appropriate if the driver had no winter driving experience and brings it down to a crawl (whereas I would be quite happy with a power slide in those cases).
The 2010 Subaru is okay. I find that I take my own corrective action before the traction control system engages. It engages and takes appropriate action if I delay my response and wait for it. It is only annoying if I want an extended drift or slide, and then it spoils the fun and does what is expected.
The 2015 Dodge is sort of okay. It behaves a bit too conservatively, which means getting going can be hampered by the system and it can drag the truck down to a crawl instead of allowing a reasonable amount of slip. It would probably rate slightly better than okay for someone with no winter driving experience.
The 2010 Ford would engage only when already stuck in a snowbank.
The 2008 Ford would engage too late and might actually confuse an experienced driver.
The 2004 Subaru and 1996 Chevy have no traction control
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Modern vehicles all run in closed-loop mode all the time... even cold-start, nowadays. They do not switch out for any reason without posting a MIL and setting a code. That means it is burning clean, no matter which mode it is in.
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You sure about that? In order for closed loop to be valid the O2 sensors need to be at a certain temperature in order to provide valid data. That's why they have heaters to bring them up as fast as possible. But until that happens the ECU is in open loop running on default values.
My experience seems to lie in between.
The closest I have to a modern vehicle is the 2018 Subaru, which has 4 control loops that I have found so far.
On very cold start-up, there is an open-loop mode with a very rich fuel mix which lasts only seconds.
For a cold start or post-open-loop, there is a partially closed-loop with a slightly rich fuel mix which can last a couple of minutes up to 10 minutes from my observations so far (it is going to be the 10 minutes in the morning tomorrow....).
Normal closed-loop mode seems to depend on valid O2 sensing ahead of the catalytic converter and a minimum temperature at the catalytic converter.
The last mode is open-loop limp mode, but the fixed parameters are very different from the start-up open-loop. I hope the ECU would not use limp mode for cold start-up; I have my doubts the car would even start like that.