hi guys,

looking for some advice. my girlfriend has a 2001 hyundai accent and to me, it revs pretty high. its at 4k rpms when its on the highway at 65mph. im not sure if this is normal for an accent or not. if not normal, do you guys know what some likely causes might be?

some background: it only has 45k miles on it and its an automatic. had a tranny flush about six months ago. she doesn't really take care of her car too well and so im trying to be a little more proactive now and trying to do the maintenance stuff for her. just recently did an oil change and will swap out all the filters and do a cap/rotor/ plugs change soon.

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

thanks.

my automatic revs at 3,000 from 70-80mph, and I thought that was high

This post has been edited by bloodninja: Jul 29 2008, 01:30 AM

yeh my civic is about 2200 rpms at 65, and so when i drove her car i was like wow...

any ideas what might be the cause?

My only guess is that the gear ratio is different. I'm guessing it's geared more towards staying in it's peak power band and less on super-awesome fuel efficiency at high speeds.

My 98 Prizm was the same way as your civic with the low revs in high speeds, but then again, with that car, I had to completely floor it to accelerate once I was up there to pass or anything, whereas with the Accent, I just have to give it a little more gas.

This post has been edited by bloodninja: Jul 29 2008, 01:37 AM

yeh at first i thought maybe the gears arent as long but then thought these cars were built with practicality in mind and couldnt see why the gearing would be the reason for the high revs. maybe im wrong...

my wife has an 05 Accent GLS and her cars revs at like 3500rpm at 65mph...and she gets like 35-37mpg highway

I can't believe no one has said this yet...

Did you check the OVERDRIVE button? It is on the side of the automatic shifter. I believe the Accent has a 4 speed automatic.

L = 1st gear (willshift to 2)
2 = 2nd Gear
D without O/D = 3rd gear
D with Overdrive enabled = 3rd and 4th gear (will use 1st and 2nd gear as well, obviously)

So, to get to a higher gear (4th) you need to have overdrive enabled, otherwise your car will stay in 3rd gear and your rpms will be much higher. The accent is my girlfriend's so I haven't driven it too much, but I think you should be around 3k rpm at 65mph.

I own a 2001 accent 1.5 sohc 5 speed stick with 13 inch rims, and at 65mph its 2900rpm

I had an automatic volvo that started to increase it's rpm on the highway.. and the tranny eventually failed.. apparently there's a belt inside that started to slip.. so I was told, but I can't see there being a belt in a transmission.

If you want to lower your highway rpm, but give up a little take off power, you could always put on taller tires/rims.

This post has been edited by srawrats: Aug 3 2008, 07:11 PM

Interesting...

My '03 automatic hatch lowers the rpm's after about 15 minutes of driving. It's very consistent. It starts at about 2700 rpm at 65 MPH, then drops down to about 2400 rpm. I've never been able to figure that out. I'm not even sure if it's always done it or not.

good call on this. checked it but its on. still not sure what else it might be

Sounds like its one of two problems.

Either your OverDrive is not engaging properly or your AT is not shifting to it.

Or else your engine is in such bad condition due to very poor compression in multiple cylinders, leaking valves, or no spark such that your engine needs to rev excessively high to make enough power go that fast.

I think that your OD is broken. Next time when you get on the freeway trying starting at L, shifting to 2, and then D and keep on the gas, maybe floor the pedal to 5k+ rpm in D. Once you are going pretty fast release the pedal to normal gas position and see if the transmission will shift again. If the transmission just slows down from 5k to 4k and never shifts at all then you know you are running on 3 gears without over drive. If you can hear/see it shift then you have other problems.