Dirt cheap GM skip shift (electronic gate lockout) disable

http://hackaday.com/2009/05/14/disabling-gms-manual-skip-shift/

That really is a dangerous and stupid "feature."

Why is it dangerous? If you need to accelerate hard, it will allow you to shift into 2nd and 3rd, but based on the pedal demand, it figures that you are not actually accelerating hard, and can deal with 4th, thus saving fuel. Seems like a good idea to me- you get performance when you need it, and fuel economy when you don't.

E-

The cars they put the skip shift in would accelerate faster than my civic with 5 gears if they only had 1 gear...

John and I have put over 60,000 miles on his 05 GTO. We got the skip shift to come on exactly once, which was on purpose to make sure it worked. Just drive better.

I've hit it a couple of times in my Camaro. You really have to be driving like a grandma to trigger it. It's not dangerous at all, but it sure is weird the first time the shift lever glides over towards fourth instead of second.

Thanks for the link to Jalopnik, though. I was looking to disable the "feature" when I did the transmission install on the MG.

I think it's great, a very clever design in that it's super simple to install/remove and helps solve a complex problem with a cheap solution. It helps you improve EPA ratings so you don't have to pay a gas guzzler tax (or at the very least, affect your CAFE ratings differently), but if you are driving outside the bounds of EPA testing driving style then it works just like a normal car. If you really don't like it, you can easily "fix" it. On other cars it takes a retune to get around EPA-targetted-tunes, which is a heck of a lot more difficult/expensive to get around.

Dangerous? Stupid? I don't get it. As mentioned, the cars that come with skip shift would out accelerate many cars on the road even if they only had fourth gear.

Bryce

I only experienced it once and that was driving my father's '06 GTO with him in the passenger seat. So, I wasn't driving how I'd like to have driven it (if it was say...mine...or a rental...or such).

What I can say is that if I ever have a vehicle equipped with this, it WILL be disabled. I buy vehicles with manual transmissions because I know how to drive and shift.

I agree, if it is simply a means to a CAFE end, then put that "feature" on there so we have acess to cool powertrains. If it's got to be there, it might as well be easy to defeat.

I don't think my dad will do it, but I'll forward him the tip. He's got all of like 5K miles on his '06 and he actually is a grandfather.

Clem

I have a 89 vette with the skip shift. My MAF burn off relay was acting up, so I swapped in the skip shift relay (same thing) over to the MAF burn off circuit and left no relay for the skip shift.

No more skip shift. The 1-4 light occasionally comes on and the computer is happy.

I haven't had an opportunity to drive a tremec 6 speed with the skip shift, but the ZF does not just "slid from first to fourth"

Before I knew the skip shift existed I used to get it stuck between gears when navigating stop and go traffic. Once I learned what it was, I just pushed down the gas pedal more, that turns it off.

That being said, it was very annoying before I was educated on what was wrong with my transmission. I am smart enough to let the car idle in 4th or 6th if I would prefer not to burn up gas.

The T56 really does slip. It's weird. It's like you just hit the rounded edge of the gate and the lever just slides to the side a bit. I don't think there's a light in the Camaro, but it's always possible it has a light that doesn't work!

Some people say it's not for fuel economy, but for drive-by noise regulations. Whatever.

I usually did that any way just to save a couple points on the mpg scale with my wrx. Though it was a 2-4 shirt first was too short to go straight to 4th without revving the crap out of it there by defeating the purpose.

Keith wrote: I've hit it a couple of times in my Camaro. You really have to be driving like a grandma to trigger it. It's not dangerous at all, but it sure is weird the first time the shift lever glides over towards fourth instead of second. Thanks for the link to Jalopnik, though. I was looking to disable the "feature" when I did the transmission install on the MG.

The only time it catches me in the Corvette is when I'm "trundling" around in a parking lot looking for a spot, or the occasional stop and go situation. I'm so used to having to shift the small engines in such cases.

In almost four years I've maybe hit it unexpectedly three, four times in my GTO. The stick really just glides from first into fourth and an orange light comes on and a cool 1st-to-4th animation plays in the DIC.

It doesn't bother me enough to spend even $7 on it. I can't figure out how this would be dangerous.

I would be one of those folks that if I did buy a car with Skip-Shift, it wouldn't work anyway. It's just my luck that things don't usually work the way they are supposed to.