Hi - I've been following this forum since getting our '07 FEH in October of 2006 (while I liked the car from day one, I fell in love with it during the 7 1/2 hour drive home during the pre-christmas Denver blizzard, December '06), getting lots of great useful information...anyway, now that I have time to delurk and ask a question...
We live in the Boulder-Denver Colorado area, and drive up to the mountains, on average, once or so a month...usually with something attached to the roof (our skis so far this winter, and during the summer, I'm sure we'll take our road bikes).
While not the fastest car on the road (we knew this when we got it, I'm fine with this, and I try to drive the car like it was meant, to maximize fuel economy), when we hit the longest steepest portions of I-70, leading up to the Eisenhower Tunnel or Loveland Pass (and on the back side, coming back home from Breckenridge, from Silverthorne up to the tunnel), the tach shows that the engine is getting up to redline. There were at least one or two ocassions where I thought it had briefly gone over the redline. When I notice this, I obviously back off the gas, etc. But, while I do not mind going slowly, anyone who drives I-70 to the mountains knows that momentum is your friend, and losing it is a killer. This is not during some crazy trip going 90 miles per hour, but just trying to keep near the speed limit.
My questions:
(A) How do you handle this kind of steep mountain driving.
(B) What will the CVT/engine combo do at redline? With a conventional transmission, the car just finds an easier gear to shift into near redline, for example with our old car ('04 Subaru Forrester XT), it would run hard, but never close to redline, even at great speeds. Will the CVT detect that you are about to redline and make adjustments (after all, it is continuously variable
? Or is it best to get over to the right lane, back off the gas, and hope that there isn't a semi going 10 miles per hour in the right lane?
Thanks, and thanks for the great info otherwise posted here.