What is Gear Limit anyway?

[danielle2019]

Still somewhat of a truck noob, so general question: It’s been established here that the gear limit feature can be used to override cylinder deactivation....but what does it really do? Under what circumstances would you want to limit your high gear?

 

[Ram41313]

Still somewhat of a truck noob, so general question: It’s been established here that the gear limit feature can be used to override cylinder deactivation....but what does it really do? Under what circumstances would you want to limit your high gear?

Might want to use it when towing something.

 

[Boozygoose]

Might want to use it when towing something.

But wouldn't it be better to use tow/haul mode in that case?

 

[Ram41313]

But wouldn't it be better to use tow/haul mode in that case?

Well if your going up hill and it’s lack of power kick it down a gear

 

[edrclark]

If you are going down hill, usually towing, you can lower the gears instead of braking. That helps the breaks from over heating.

 

[HeliPilot]

^^^exactly this

 

[Rick3019]

When towing sometimes the transmission keeps shifting up and down in between gears This happens a lot pulling a travel trailer on a windy day To stop this you pick the lower gear

 

[danielle2019]

If you are going down hill, usually towing, you can lower the gears instead of braking. That helps the breaks from over heating.

Thanks guys! Good to know, even though I don’t have to worry much about descending hills in South Louisiana!

 

[Diamondback]

Coming from a Durango RT with paddle shifters .. I like to use the gear limit to hold the vehicle from speeding up while going downhill (aka engine braking) .. keeps me from having to hold the brake pedal and heating up the brakes -- as long as you pay attention to the RPMs, the engine will be fine .. I'm told the trans will be fine too ,, that may be another story

On city streets, we like to "lock" or "limit" top gear in 8th so the ECO mode never kicks in. Better throttle response and less lag, etc. (unless you purchase something like the Pedal Commander)


PLEASE, FCA? CAN WE GET A "SPORT" MODE BUTTON AND TUNE ??

 

[Narg]

I wish they'd show the gear in the DIC display no matter if the limiter was on or off. Oh well.

 

[edrclark]

The current gear is displayed

 

[Scram1500]

It's also helpful in an off roading or slippery situation. You want to keep the revs up in the power band without the transmission upshifting and downshifting which could cause unexpected traction loss

 

[jloops]

I wish they'd show the gear in the DIC display no matter if the limiter was on or off. Oh well.

There is a setting in your EVIC screen setup to display the current gear. It will show up to the right of “D”.

 

[MikeP]

Still somewhat of a truck noob, so general question: It’s been established here that the gear limit feature can be used to override cylinder deactivation....but what does it really do? Under what circumstances would you want to limit your high gear?

How does this override the cylinder deactivation? What harm might we expect by doing this?

 

[AmericanRebelution]

How does this override the cylinder deactivation? What harm might we expect by doing this?

Our trucks have 8 speed transmissions. If you push the minus sign on the limiter, gear "8" will be displayed in the selection area. Obviously this is the highest gear. In that setting, gears are not limited but MDS is deactivated. If you do not do this procedure, there will be no gear displayed in the selection area and the MDS is active. No harm done by deactivating MDS, just don't get the advantage of improved fuel economy that MDS facilitates.

 

[Neurobit]

Our trucks have 8 speed transmissions. If you push the minus sign on the limiter, gear "8" will be displayed in the selection area. Obviously this is the highest gear. In that setting, gears are not limited but MDS is deactivated. If you do not do this procedure, there will be no gear displayed in the selection area and the MDS is active. No harm done by deactivating MDS, just don't get the advantage of improved fuel economy that MDS facilitates.

FYI - If you want the gear display always on, you can enable that in settings.

Cheers,

 

[Neurobit]

The Hemi shuts down 4 cylinders while maintaining speed, you’ll see the green ECO light on your display if you have it set to display. But if you set the gear limit on 8, you have all your gears available, but it won’t shut off cylinders. Sort of a bypass of Eco mode.
No damage, just allowing the engine to run smooth with all 8 cylinders and avoiding a sometimes unwelcome exhaust note shift.

Spot on!

 

[mikeru82]

Our trucks have 8 speed transmissions. If you push the minus sign on the limiter, gear "8" will be displayed in the selection area. Obviously this is the highest gear. In that setting, gears are not limited but MDS is deactivated. If you do not do this procedure, there will be no gear displayed in the selection area and the MDS is active. No harm done by deactivating MDS, just don't get the advantage of improved fuel economy that MDS facilitates.

You skipped a few details. Such as, you have to shift to D first. It will display the gear the trans is currently in. If you haven’t started moving yet it will display 1. If you’re driving 25 it might display 5. Point is, you Can push the + button until it displays 8. Shifting out of D always turns off gear limit and turns on MDS. So if you want to keep MDS disabled you need to do this every time you shift into D.

MDS benefit varies. You’ll probably see the most benefit on longer flat highway driving. I see no measurable difference on my daily commute, which has lots of hills and hardly ever see the MDS active.

 

[Pola0502ds]

I am also new trucks and especially my cummins diesel engine. But am i understanding this correctly? If i am towing a travel trailer, which i will be, and when going up a hill, i would want to use this feature and lock the gear in 6th (in my case i only have 6 gears)? Is there any other situation where i would want to lock it in 5th, 4th, 3rd, etc?

Any insight would be great.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Diamondback]

I am also new trucks and especially my cummins diesel engine. But am i understanding this correctly? If i am towing a travel trailer, which i will be, and when going up a hill, i would want to use this feature and lock the gear in 6th (in my case i only have 6 gears)? Is there any other situation where i would want to lock it in 5th, 4th, 3rd, etc?

Any insight would be great.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Depends on you ..
- I use mine when driving on the local military base (MPH is 20, so I lock mine into 2nd or 3rd to keep from speeding).
- When going up hill (I have Highway Gears compared to Street Gears), so I keep a lower gear to limit my trans from upshifting and causing the RPMs to go lower than 1200 and bogging down the engine (which then it downshifts again).
- When I go downhill, I limit mine to 3rd or even 2nd so I don't have to ride the brakes down the hill to my home.
- When driving to lunch with my co-workers, I may or may not hit the "-" sign to lock it into 8th to keep it from going into ECO mode. This gives me more of a throttle response and not having to wait for the transmission to downshift or exit ECO mode to build up a bit of speed ..

I don't use it all the time, but I do use it from time to time.

My 5 cents of thoughts