Odyssey shift quadrant

[Rob Leigh]

I notice that the Honda Odyssey, which has the same 3.5L V6 and 5 speed auto as our Vue, has one more shift quadrant position than the Vue. It has a range that limits the shifting to the bottom 4 ratios in addition to 1 & 2; 1, 2 & 3; 1, 2, 3, 4 &5. Anyone researched the controls of the 5 speed auto to the extent of adding this "1 - 4" range to the Vue?

Rob

[Dante]

Interesting observation. I would really like to have a gear selection that keeps it out of 5th for when driving through hilly country at highway speed, to keep it from downshifting all the time.

The gear selection lever from the '04 and up V6 Vue is, so far as I know, the same as all other automatic Vues. The gear selector basically indicates to the PCM/TCM what position the lever is at and the PCM/TCM shifts gears accordingly. From what I've read, the Vue controller module doesn't support any extra gear selection positions. However, it's *possible* although unlikely, that the control module is directly lifted from the Honda team and would actually handle the 1-4 position, and function accordingly. I guess the only way to know for sure would be to put the gear selection lever and mechanisms from an Odd-yssey into a Vue and see how it works.

[scotted73]

I thought the "I" position was used to keep it the VUE out of overdrive-5th gear.

[Rob Leigh]

Thanks for the replies.
The "I" position keeps the trans in just 1st, 2nd or 3rd.
The column mounted shift in the Odyssey would be tough to adapt, but what about the Vue shift linkage? Is it mearly limiting the communication from the shift lever to the trans?
Are you getting your "reading info" from the service manual? I looked at the list of same and all they say is Service manual 1,2,3,4&5. Where can one find out what is in each? I TW my dealer service manager and he is no darn help - acted as if I was a fool for asking! He claims he has none himself, but uses special ones from Saturn. What a jerk!
I have a service appointment this Thurs re sloppy shifting from 3rd to 4th and from 4th to 5th and plan to rattle their chains then.
Otherwise we like our Vue very much. It replaced our '96 Caravan with 3.8L, sports suspension, etc., but when 185K arrivied we decided to sell while it was running aok.
Rob

[Dante]

My reading material is basically the shop manuals in CD form. Electrically, the shift lever works like so: It is always in one of 6 positions -- P, R, N, D, I, L. Each of these positions has a sensor at it, basically an electrical contact. The gear selection wiring tells the PCM/TCM "the selector is at position X" based on the electrical values it receives. Based on that "perceived" position, the transmission is placed into a given gear. It's all electronic. I haven't looked at that document in a long while, but that's how I remember it working. Pretty simple really, just like a light switch with 6 positions. :D

What I'm not sure about is what exactly reads the gear selector position. If it's truly a Honda computer box, then it *may* have the logic in it for that "overdrive" gear between D and I that would keep you only out of 5th.

As you pointed out, the Odyssey has a column gear selector, so simply swapping hardware would be pretty much impossible. I'll go try to find that wiring diagram and see if perhaps you could rig up some sort of "override" switch that would force you into the 4-and-below mode without jacking with the gear selector itself.

[Dante]

Ok, I went and looked at the schematic. It looks like the control signals from the gear selector actually go into the BCM. The BCM, being an all-GM unit, has a zero probability of supporting this wicked cool overdrive gear that we would so love to have. There's a good chance I'm missing something. Attached is the signal values. The wiring diagram is in my gallery b/c it's too large to attach to the post.

http://www.saturnfans.com/photos/showphoto.php/photo/24797/size/big/cat/500/ppuser/9293

[Bill Murray]

Dante, I think you have it covered.
It would take some computer hacking to get past this.

[Rob Leigh]

Dante,

Thanks for all the info even tho it looks hopeless! As you suggest, it would be great to have a switch that would either allow or prevent going in to 5th in D.

Where did you get your Service manuals CD? I really do not want to spend 50.00 each for these manuals!

Rob

[Dante]

eBay... got a 6 disc set that is actually a Jakarta web application container... if you don't know much about configuring Java and web apps, the GM SI cds won't get you very far. They have a lot of info on all GM vehicles from like 1980 on... there are web updates, if you have the most recent version.