My 2008 LTD, I4 auto shows a + and a - sign. How are they supposed to be used?

I know when I first rented an Altima I had no Idea! That is your Hyundai

Shiftronic. Why you can shift the Car itself and pretend it is fun. I hardly touch

it. However it is all in the Manual, and a copy is posted at the top here. Enjoy your

Sonata!

It's meant to give you an option to manually shift gears. Normally you drive your car in automatic mode. You shift to 'D' and your car shifts gear automatically. However, you can do the shifting yourself. Move the shifter to the right of 'D' and it will be in the middle, between + and -. Now take a look at your dashboard and the sign 'D' will turn into whatever gear the car is in at the moment, for example '3' which means 3rd gear. Now if you move your shifter toward '+' the car will shift into 4th gear. If you move the shifter to '-' then the car will downshift to 2nd gear.

If you never drove a car with a true manual transmission then the chances are that the concept of shifting gears will be strange to you. I recommend you to use D in that case and forget about + and -.

It was my first experience with a shiftronic (closest experience to a manual as well) for me, and I actually found it very useful in the mountains on steep and winding roads. It was much easier to ride in lower gears and use engine braking rather than ride my brakes the whole time. Other than that... haven't used it much :)

SHIFTRONIC is actually fun for the first few days...weeks...then its back to D :innocent:

Don't trust them, they are lying.

+ & - is onboard calculator... :grin:

hah - yep .. have had my car for 2.5 years and I haven't used the shiftronic since the test drive - LOL - it might not even work anymore ...

I used shiftronic only in the winter, so i can start out in gear 2.

hmm, very good point - never thought of that ... with the traction control and my city living it hasn't been much of an issue anyway getting going in the snow :thumbsup:

personally i think down should downshift and up should upshift....just seems more natural to me...thus it takes too much thought to use the shiftronic most of the time...except in slow starts where auto wants to be in 4th gear at 20 miles an hour and 4th at 35 so you can get no power in an accelerating siutation.

I agree... :beer:

The manual shifting of the shifttronic does two very good things. It gets you going very fast off the line and in slow rolling starts instead of the transmission waiting to see what it wants to do. and as stated earlier, it allows engine breaking. This is very good in mountain driving and spirited driving. Although for a twisty road you cant beet a real live manual transmission. :grin:

Manually controlling a pretty slow-shifting automatic was just a bonus offer that Hyundai as well as other companies give to you so that they can phase out manuals in their more upscale models. There simply isn't a demand for manuals, so they put it in for those people that wanted the manual to begin with (sure, for the most part).

I pretty much only use it if I:

A) Want to just smoke tires on the road and have the transmission only upshift for me when it hits the redline (which it will).

B) Need more control of my gears in the winter. Pretty useless now for me as the V6's have traction control - but hey.

C) I'm stuck in traffic bumper to bumper, 5 second accelerations at a time and want to just stick the transmission in 2nd gear the whole time so I don't have to deal with 1, 2. 1, 2. 1,2 over and over.

This post has been edited by factrzero: Sep 18 2008, 01:46 PM

also good when you need to pass some one.... since the automatic downshifts so slow, you can shift to manual and downshift on your own and blow by the car you are passing.

So slow? I dont think the automatic is that slow.... You punch it, trans down shifts and you pass.

Maybe that's how it works in the XG and/or the Elantra, but the Sonata is a whole 'nother ball of wax. The order goes something like: you punch it, the trans thinks about it for about 14 hours (only slightly exaggerated), then it downshifts and you pass. The problem still exists with the Shiftronic function, but you can plan ahead slightly to make the shift at just the right moment.

It's a problem that we're all aware of, but one that Hyundai doesn't seem to care about (or know how to fix).

I downshift while still behind the car, allowing my engine to really purr, then change lane, drop the hammer, and fly by.

i like the fun of revving it up occasionally myself, though i don't use it all that often, especially when so many stop signs and red lights are so close together in town here i reach the next one before i get to shift to third. :P

the wife still doesn't know what it does or how it works. i told her "that's ok, you don't need to know". :grin: :grin:

Im with you on this one i told my girlfriend the same thing :grin: its true they dont need to know.But im a big fan of the shiftronic it jus give my sonata the extra jump i like also good for taking off and leavein people in the dust.Not that i ever do that :whistling: