QOTD: Do You Ever Bother With Sport Mode?

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

Once a fancy feature reserved for legitimately sporty or luxurious vehicles with ample power to generate grins regardless of electronic intervention, “sport mode” is now nearly ubiquitous. It appears in tepid (but efficient!) economy cars. Your mom’s crossover probably has a button, dial, or shift lever position that fiddles with shift points, firms up the steering, and makes the accelerator pedal touchier than a friend whose long-term relationship just went south.

Auto journos quickly make use of the feature when hooning an automaker’s latest and greatest, but does it ever serve a purpose to you, the owner?

While sport mode, increasingly seen in the presence of wheel-mounted flappy paddles, might seem strange and out of place in, say, an off-lease Lincoln MKX, it does have its perks. For one, it’s a great way to calm a tempermental transmission that never stops hunting for gears. In a world where autoboxes are shifting more than ever, this is not an uncommon gripe. Also, by holding lower ratios longer and locking out the uppermost cogs, less-than-swift vehicles can suddenly come alive — or at least gain a weak pulse — in a generally unsatisfying way.

Sometimes, it’s necessary to give your overboosted, loosey-goosey steering a shot of Cialis to firm things up, thus cutting down on unwanted wandering. Sport mode can do that for you. Maybe your vehicle is one where sport mode can firm up your vehicle’s suspension, too, thus paring down your car’s body lean while high-tailing it home to watch a debate.

If snow and ice is a concern, or if steep inclines dog you each and every day, it’s possible you use sport mode to gain access to a manumatic shift function or just to hold a lower gear. Not all so-equipped vehicles require one to shift into “S,” but many do. Puttin’ ‘er in Low is your ticket to flappy paddle bliss in other vehicles, though it’s not necessary to instigate a downshift. Every manufacturer goes their own way in this regard.

As much as this feature can reduce the unpleasant symptoms of a less-than-stellar automobile, it stands to reason that if you feel you need to use it, you probably wouldn’t have bought that car in the first place. Thus, you probably don’t own a vehicle that requires sport mode to be activated to get your kicks.

And if your commuting buddy is a thrifty economy car, it also stands to reason that you’re interested in MPGs, not reducing the life of your low-drag tires.

In a decently-powered premium sedan, you’re probably fine leaving it in default “normal” or “eco” mode, knowing full well there’s power on tap to pull off that passing maneuver, if needed. And your steering is likely just fine already; nicely weighted, precise, and not in need of further firming. Even in your Mustang or whatever, how often would you call up the prettier gauge display and red lights in your day-to-day life?

Let’s put the question to you, B&B. If your present vehicle came equipped with sport mode, do you ever use it?

[Image: Ford, General Motors]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • PandaBear PandaBear on Oct 23, 2019

    On my Prius, yes. I need it when I'm late and need to go through yellow light fast enough. Otherwise I'd use Econ mode.

  • Nrd515 Nrd515 on Oct 24, 2019

    The only time I don't drive my car in Sport mode is in the winter when it's bad out. I wish it had a "snow" setting to gut the engine power and automatically take off in 2nd gear.

    • Sgeffe Sgeffe on Oct 27, 2019

      I’ll end up doing that in the winter with my new Accord, using the paddles to manually hold gears. Although the car starts out in 2nd in normal mode, I think. 40mph cruise in 7th. Haven’t quite figured out the gearing at various speeds just yet, because as I stated above, the transmission is extremely well-behaved.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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