Not everyone is used to driving a vehicle with automatic transmission. Many find it even easier than driving a manual, especially on flat roads. But when heading into a mountainous landscape with your rental camper, then driving with an automatic transmission requires extra attention. The information below is therefore useful if you have not previously driven a vehicle with an automatic transmission. Or for people who have experience with automatic transmission but have never driven an automatic rental motorhome in the mountains before.
The capacity of rental motorhomes with an automatic transmission
Campervan and especially motorhomes are considerably heavier than a car, but the engine is often more or less the same. This requires some different actions while driving a motorhome. You will find that driving a motorhome on flat roads and without a headwind is easy. You put the camper in the “D” (drive) position and only use your right foot to brake and accelerate.
Tip: Are you driving a camper with an automatic transmission for the first time? Then place your left foot under the driver’s seat. This way you prevent that you brake hard where your automatism expects the clutch.
Note: Most Toyota motorhomes have a gear selector that seems to be in the D-position, but needs to be pushed to the left into the correct position. The only way to be sure of this is to see the letter D light up on the dashboard, on the illuminated display.
In the other position (more to the right), the camper also drives fine, but does not go past the third gear. This leads to higher revs, more noise and higher fuel consumption. The so-called “overdrive” is switched off in that position. Use this position occasionally when the road surface rises slightly so that the engine has a little more pulling power.
How to drive in a mountainous landscape with an automatic transmission?
In Australia, but especially in New Zealand, there are many mountains that will cause the camper to slow down immediately. In these regions you will not often be able to drive in the standard “D” position. If you simply leave the gear lever in the D position and the road surface rises, you will notice that the automatic gearbox is ‘confused’ between the different gears and switches up and down regularly. Your speed drops sharply and you lose a lot of pulling power (as a camper is considerably heavier than a passenger car).
An automatic transmission is therefore fine on flat roads, but you will have to “switch” between the options as soon as you enter the mountains or even on slightly rising roads. The same applies to roads that descend where you regularly have to ‘switch back’ manually to use the engine brake. If you would use the foot brake continuously it can overheat, so make sure to ‘engine-brake’ by shifting to a lower gear regularly.
This is how you switch gears in an automatic
When the hills and mountains emerge, keep your left hand on the automatic gear lever and ‘manage’ the speed and the power of the camper by switching back from the D to the positions below: 3, 2 and in some cases at very low speed as in hairpin turns that go up or down, even the 1 position (also called the L-position in some models).
You will quickly master this but we cannot mention this enough, keep in mind that a camper is heavier than a normal car, yet with a similar engine capacity, and therefore slower. Especially in the mountains, even with managing the speed as described above, the speed of a motor home is low or at least lower than many other road users.
The locals are used to this, but you will regularly get other tourists in passenger cars behind you in mountainous areas. Never drive faster because of this but drive to the circumstances and the limit of the rental camper and yourself.
When it is possible for others to overtake you, indicate to the left, release the accelerator and then drive as far as possible to the left so that the other traffic know they can overtake you safely. Particularly in New Zealand, people are polite and thank you for that, usually by tooting their horn briefly.
Do you have doubts about what a suitable rental motorhome is for you? Then contact our travel advisors for advice without obligation.
