"B" (engine break?) mode

Geez I wish people would learn the difference between break as in to destroy something and brake as in things used to stop a car! ;-)

B mode uses engine compression to slow the car down. It causes 'drag' on the transmission so it doesn't turn as fast. It is the same general feeling of downshifting a standard or automatic transmission so you don't have to ride the brakes down the hill, thus heating them up, causing them to fail, causing your car to smash into something and break. Plus, you get more regen with 'B' mode down the hill than just using the brakes.

There are many hills steep enough that B isn't enough to maintain speed and you will use the brake pedal as well. By the way, Cruise Control will not engage if the transmission is in B mode.

 

Remember that if you're traveling below 20 MPH when you engage "B" Mode, it does not spin the engine. Instead it employs Maximum Regenerative Braking to slow you down.

Some Hypermilers use this in city traffic to maximize battery recovery, but it risks getting you hit in the rear because your brake lights don't come on and the person behind you doesn't have any indication that you're slowing.

 

As you might infer from the first line of my post, you are in a suitably large crowd with the 'break' vs 'brake' thing .

There are any number of people who think 'B' mode means 'Battery charge', as in the reason it exists is to charge the battery. Nope, just a nice side benefit.

 

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Especially because it slows the car a LOT faster than just taking your foot off the accelerator. Watch your rear view mirror just in case.

 

English has a very poor correspondence between grammar and pronunciation. This, in addition to break-brake, you also have bear-bare, beat-bit, boar-bore, cheek-chick, deer-dear, dock-duck, do-due, fare-fair, feel-fill, hole-whole, incite-insight, it's-its, launch-lunch, lead-lid, leave-live, lose-loose, lock-luck, marsh-March, muscle-mussel, principal-principle, son-sun, steak-stake, suck-sock, tail-tale, their-there, this-these, verses-versus, waited-weighted, way-weigh, weather-whether, were-where...

 

If you are going down a hill and find that you want to use the brakes most or all of the time, that's when you should use "B". Continuous use of the brakes can cause the brake fluid to boil, and then the brakes will stop working (obviously very dangerous). Don't forget to go back to "D" at the bottom of the hill.

 

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Half of those words do not sound the same.
Lead-lid: no, however, lead-led: Yes!

 

Worse:
live: Where do you live? - soft I
live: Live bait. - hard I

There are 4 major definitions for WELL, all pronounced the same, in my little 840 page desk dictionary, including 21 specific descriptions. I'd hate to look in the BIG dictionary.

English, as a language, stinks. Unfortunately, it is the only one I know.

 

Hi bruceha_2000

If you think English is strange.... take a look at French and Spanish.

 

I'd say that your hills are either not very steep or not very long :_>

 

I'll say. Coming down a Sierra Nevada pass, I'm very much used to downshifting, either with a manual transmission or an automatic. Not to do so will burn out brakes - though I think it's by actually wearing them out/overheating them by friction rather than boiling the brake fluid.

Though I am still looking forward to my first chance to try B mode in the Sierras.

 

There is no such place as the "SierraS" - the term "Sierra" is already plural and adding an "s" is akin to "mountainses."

B-gear works very well in all aspects of the Sierra Nevada, Coast Ranges, Cascades and Rocky Mountains. In B-gear you don't want cruise control and it is a pleasure to watch the battery turn green in those long down hill grades - without any braking.

 

Can you also get the City of Los Angeles to change the name of Los Feliz Blvd. to a grammatically correct one?

:mrgreen:

 

Very True. This is how it is like when you use the friction brakes. When the brake pedal is pressed down, one of the computers meashures how much is pressed down (variable) and sends it to the pump by wire. Then the pump receives the signal and takes that variable and pressurizes accordingly. That pressure in the brake lines pull the pads together making them "squeeze" on the rotors.

 

Wait, or does it have frictional brakes like a standard car?
Does it just have a simple piston that pressurizes the lines and squeezes the rotors?
I'm confused. :|

 

Every workday I climb from sea level to 3000' and use B mode on the way down. Without it I am constantly on the brakes, with it I use them infrequently. I go in and out of B just as I would conventionally downshift depending on the specific grade and find it a great brake saver.

I've had my seaside pearl for a month down and love it. The daily climb has hurt my milege, 45 usually, but I laugh when I realize that a month ago I was getting 18 in my Grand Cherokee.

 

Yep. A quick glance at the map confirms that there are indeed more and more severe grades in California and Nevada than in Missouri.

Brake fading is caused by boiling brake fluid: the vapor, unlike the liquid, is very compressible and so does not transmit force from the cylinder to the brake shoes. Severe downgrades have pull-outs for vehicles to stop so that overheated brakes can cool down. Brake pads don't grind down to nothing in a half hour, and if they did they don't grow back.

So, what are the errors in that last paragraph?