Which transmission will make my car go the quickest?

Question

It's a 2003 Hyundai Elantra automatic.

It has these options:

D

2

3

L

I drove in L and the cars RPM's go very high when I gun to 45mph but the car accelerates as fast as when it's in Drive or D.

Would 2 or 3 make the car accelerate faster? And which transmission makes the car accelerate the quickest from around 40-100mph.

Answer 1

You can Drive it like a manuel trans by putting it into L then going to D. It still isn't going to do the 1/4 in anything faster than 20 seconds.

Don't over Rev the engine and Blow it.

Answer 2

Not Which transmission. Which Gear? That should be your question.

You have an automatic transmission.

L is first gear. It is what you use if you are towing something going up a hill slowly. You can't go past 20mph with this. It is bad for engine. D does this automatically.

2 is 2nd gear

3 is 3rd gear.

D is 1st to 4th gear. It automatically switches for you from L to 2 to 3 to 4th gear.

The highest gear goes fastest.

Just leave it in D.

Manually changing the other gears in an automatic transmission is bad and will make the car break down sooner.  

Answer 3

go trade it in for a manual.

my mini coop is a manual and its lots of fun.!

Answer 4

2 you'll be in second gear the whole time, 3 will be third gear. If you want to go fast, you must modify the car to make it go faster. Put a shift kit, to make your car literally shift faster.  

Answer 5

All your doing by putting the shifter in L is limiting the transmission from shifting to a higher gear. Your car only has one set of gears. L limits to low gear. 2 limits it to low and second gear. 3 = L,2,3, D=L,2,3,4+overdrive. the only thing you can do by limiting the gears is to make the motor spin at a higher RPM in each gear. If you want quicker get a better car.

Answer 6

Ditto on the above answerers.

You can shift like this: L, 2, 3, (D with Overdrive turned off) and then D in order to simulate driving with a manual, giving you a simulated 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and then a 4th gear with overdrive, but automatic transmissions are not built to handle the kind of RPMs you're talking about when you're trying to run each gear to red-line to go as fast as possible.

If you take a look in your owners manual, they're going to recommend you don't stay in L at faster than 10-15 miles per hour, maybe even slower, to keep your transmission from straining and eventually burning out.

Also, under no circumstances should you be trying to hit 100 miles per hour in a Hyundai Elantra - nothing on that car is built for safe cruising at speeds higher than 75-85 mph. I'm not trying to be your dad, but I sure wouldn't want to be if you're regularly traveling at those speeds on economy car tires wrapped around 15 inch rims.

Best of luck!