City driving and better fuel economy in L or *?

[TriumphRUs]

So I'm a new owner of an Acclaim triomatic :)

Today on my journey to work I decided to drive in L rather than the usual * I drive in and noticed the revs are much higher in * than L. I have read the manual and it says * is more economical which confused me as my understanding is the higher the revs the more fuel you use 🤔. The max speed I can do on this commute is 40mph. Am I supposed to change to * after a certain speed? I know the max you can stay in * is 50mph.

I'd appreciate anyone who can shed some light on this.

Many thanks

[ferny]

L - pulling away, stop-start traffic and hill starts.

* - normal driving, accelerating to 50mph for merging.

OD - cruising above 30mph

[Steve AKA vitessesteve]

This is page from the Triumph Acclaim Product Insight Programme that was issued to salemen to help them sell the car.

It explains the using of Trio-matic.

[Bitumen Boy]

Hi Dean, I have driven many thousands of miles in a Triomatic Acclaim - sadly sold a few years ago - and managed to get reasonable economy out of it, so I think I can give some pointers here.

The Trioatic transmission is a bit of an oddball, really - there's nothing else quite like it except the contemporary Hondamatic (which is what it really is). The factory literature tries to pretend it's something like a full automatic, which it isn't. It's a semi auto - semi in that it has no clutch, but gear changing is entirely manual and the main advantage is that you avoid continual clutchwork in traffic. Granted, it's an epicyclic geartrain so it works a little differently to a manual box but essentially you have three fixed ratios to play with - roughly equivalent to first, third and top in the manual cars - and the torque converter tries to make up for the missing second and fourth gears. It can do this fairly well, but the driver needs to be on the ball and make full use of those three gears. I'm not convinced that the nomenclature of L, * and OD for the three gears is helpful, really, but I'll attempt to stick with it to avaid confusion. I'll also have to simplify a bit, as you'll come to realise as you get to know the car better, but by then you'll have figured out how to get the best out of it for yourself.

 

DO NOT leave the transmission in one gear irrespective of road conditions and speed as you've been doing thus far. Doing so makes the torque converter work harder, while it will cope with this it does mean a loss of efficiency. Pulling away from rest in * is a bad idea - yes the car will cope with it but it's rather like making a manual car pull away in third. Once upon an early morning when I wasn't properly awake and probably shouldn't have been driving at all I did get a manual Acclaim to pull away in third, but it didn't like it much and I wouldn't advise trying it for yourself...

ALWAYS use L for pulling away from rest. Change up to * as necessary, and then possibly OD - you need to change up and down the box to suit your speed and road conditions, just like you would with an ordinary manual 'box. Make full use of OD - if you're getting up to 40mph you should almost certainly be using OD, unless going uphill or into a strong headwind. OD is fine for cruising along at anything over 30mph if the road is either level or on a falling gradient, so long as the engine sounds happy with it, but drop down to * to accelerate or climb even a slight rising gradient.

NEVER allow even a suspicion of the engine labouring in OD - this is fatal to fuel economy. Far better to allow the engine to rev "cleanly" in * - it seems counter intuitive, I know, but if you pay attention to what your right foot is doing you'll notice that it can take a smaller throttle opening for higher revs in * than it will take to maintain the same road speed in OD, if road and weather conditions warrant it. It is quite acceptable to hold * even at 70mph, if climbing a steep hill on a main road, but you should of course change up to OD as soon as the gradient eases enough to do so.

Really it would be a good idea if you could take the car on a longer run out of town and get to know it properly on some country roads, play with the transmission, listen to the engine (no music/headphones!) and get to know what works. There's a definite technique to driving a Triomatic and practical experience is the only way to fully pick it up. It would also be useful to know what sort of MPG you're getting at present - just say if you need help with working this out. I used to get around 22-24mpg just messing around on local work round the valleys, but found it was entirely possible to get into the low 30s on a longer run.

[TriumphRUs]

Thank you all and especially Dan for taking the time and giving me pointers on how to make the most of the transmission. I have always been a manual kinda guy and this is my first 'automatic' car. The whole idea of changing gears without depressing a clutch is nothing less than witchcraft to me haha.

 

That has definitely been helpful. I did take it on a motorway run to see how it fares and try out the OD. I noticed acceleration (60 to 70mph) isn't as quick in OD as it is in *. But very comfortable drive and overtaking happens without issues.

As for the mpg. I will fill her up and see how many miles I can cover until half tank and do some calculations.