New to Insignia

[alihijazi]

Hello been driving my first insignia for 2 months now
It's 4cylinders A20NHT with automatic gearbox and this is my first automatic gearbox car as I always drove Astras with manual gearbox
I drive the insignia daily to work and back home
I noticed that downshifting from 3rd to 2nd is rough and not smooth but if the car was downshifting while braking firmly the shift is very smooth
Is this normal?
Another thing sometimes when I accelerate I notice like the gear box has a 2.5 gear and 3.5 gear!! The rpm needle drops as if the car shifts up but it is still engaging that same gear (this happens when car is on second or third gear)

Kindly advise

[Ernst]

The “half” gears you seems to have is the lock-up engaging. This mechanically bypasses the torque converter, causing a drop in rpm. This is normal. When the gearbox oil is cold this might also happen in 4th gear to quicken the warming up of the oil.

Regarding the harsh downshifts, it isn’t the most sophisticated gearbox around, but you might be able to improve it by changing the gearbox oil. How many miles has it done?

[alihijazi]

The “half” gears you seems to have is the lock-up engaging. This mechanically bypasses the torque converter, causing a drop in rpm. This is normal. When the gearbox oil is cold this might also happen in 4th gear to quicken the warming up of the oil.

Regarding the harsh downshifts, it isn’t the most sophisticated gearbox around, but you might be able to improve it by changing the gearbox oil. How many miles has it done?

The car is now 58k miles

[leearnold89]

I wouldn't say if it was normal or not but mine can sometimes be harsh on the change down in the lower gears when accelerating (up a hill for example). Box is on 40k and not had a oil change as far as I'm aware.

[alihijazi]

I wouldn't say if it was normal or not but mine can sometimes be harsh on the change down in the lower gears when accelerating (up a hill for example). Box is on 40k and not had a oil change as far as I'm aware.

I got harsh downshifting not when acceleration but when braking
If my foot wasn't pressing heavily I get harsh downshifting from third to second gear only
All other downshifting are smooth for the other gears
But if I was applying brakes firmly the downshifting from 3 to 2 is also smooth