ella138 said:
I've had my Mo for a couple of months now and I love it. One thing I have noticed however is sometimes when I am coming to a stop with my foot on the brake, I feel a very slight surge of power and I have to brake a little harder to get the Mo to stop smoothly. It is not a smooth even brake. The surge is sometimes a little scary. Has anyone else experienced this or have any explanation for whether this is normal or not?
Just wanted to combine some of these answers and put them into pain English in case people haven't figured out the "locking and unlocking of the torque converter" thing.
As you're braking, the engine is still engaged, and the RPMs might jump up a bit to help you brake. It's essentially "engine braking" in a manual transmission, where you shift it into a lower gear to make the engine slow you down so you don't have to brake as hard. The MO does this automatically, and they call it "downhill assist" or something like that.
Anyway, as you're coming to a stop, the engine is helping you to brake (by keeping the torque converter "locked"). But once you get down to a particular speed (about 18mph) the engine decides that it's time to release it's grip and go to idle. This is the "unlocking" of the torque converter, and that's when you feel the surge of power.
So it's not really a surge of power, but the engine releasing its grip, therefore releasing some of the braking power.
It's caught me by surprise a couple of times as well, but it's normal behavior and once you know about it you do get used to it. Doesn't bother me anymore.