I have recently purchased a 2002 Ranger XLT from a little old gramma.
It is a beautiful vehicle, well cared for with 35000 miles.
My question is; can I retrain the computer to the way I drive? I have heard
this is possible. I don't like the shift points of the transmission. Unless I really
step on it the shift is way too quick and goes through the gears way too quickly.
This of course causes poor gas mileage. REAL poor. I can be goin 25 miles per
hour in overdrive.

I heard that all you had to do is disconnect the battery for awhile and reconnect
and drive the vehicle the way you would normally drive and it learns your driving
pattern. Is this true? Any info appreciated.

Thanks,
Widgeteye

 

ya that is true.

unhook the negitive side from the battery. wait like 10 min. hook it back up and drive it.

 

Yes that is true.

 

Cool, Thanks.

 

If this is your first Ranger, it will take some getting used to for the shift pattern anyway - re-learn or not. When I took mine for a test drive from the dealer's lot, I was only half way down the exit ramp, already in 5th gear (OD) at 45 MPH, and not doing much accelerating.

 

Ha, see, I found the opposite when I test drove an auto. I tend to keep the revs low. The SOHC V6 in late model Rangers seems to require quite a bit of RPMs to really get into the power. Test driving the auto showed me that the engine really could (and even should) be pushed into the 4-5k RPM range. The experience taught me to give the Ranger another shot.

Don't forget, the quicker you shift into higher gears the BETTER your mileage will be. Reving the engine may generate a lot of power, but it will kick your mileage figures in the backside. I routinely shift into 5th at about 40 MPH now and try to keep it under 2k RPM in an effort to conserve fuel.

 

The computer does not learn "the way you drive" and adapt to it.

It uses a shift-adaptive pressure-control strategy that can compensate for component wear and component variability. This feature is designed to increase durability and provide consistent shift feel over the life of the vehicle. It compares each shift to an ideal shift and adjusts line pressure, shift duration and other parameters to achieve it. That is what is meant by adaptive learning.

When you reset the PCM by powering it down, all previously learned adaptive values in Keep Alive Memory (KAM) are lost and it reverts to a set of "safe" defaults. It will shift differently for awhile (usually firmer) but it will learn its way back to the same place it was before.

 

i agree with bob the shift points will not change much but when doug put my new tune in he did clear the memory by unhooking the battery. i think it was for any learned fuel values or something i'm not to keen on that stuff

 

Besides fuel trims and the adaptive learning for transmission shift feel, here are some examples of other things that the PCM learns:



IAC duty cycles for 4 idle modes (2 on manual trucks):Learning to anticipate the correct IAC duty cycle for each mode allows the PCM to jump directly to that value when the mode is entered. This helps to minimize idle dips and flares and hunting.



Open loop Fuel Modifier:
The PCM monitors the oxygen sensors in closed loop as a check on the accuracy of the MAF sensor. From this info it calculates an injector duty cycle correction factor that is applied during open loop operation.



Profile Correction learning:
Software is used to learn the slight inaccuracies of the tooth profile of the crankwheel that is monitored by the crankshaft position sensor. This improves the accuracy of the misfire monitor.