Q: Uphill power
My Kia Rio does not like hills. Would it be better to take it out of ECO when driving uphill or should I use the + - on the gear shift?
My car has 2425 miles.
My car has an automatic transmission.
As you may have noticed, when the vehicle is in "ECO" mode, there is a significant reduction in power that is intentionally done to reduce emissions into the environment. You can try turning this off and you should notice a bit of an increase in power, especially when climbing hills. You are correct in that you can also elect to shift the transmission manually by using the +/- paddle shifting options which will cause the transmission to change gears only on your command. Most of the cars equipped with this manual shifting option do have a safety feature in the transmission that will automatically shift the transmission into the next gear when the engine reaches a specific predetermined RPM to avoid engine damage.
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