this is embarrasing but can someone tell me if on my 94 camry 4 cyl. when should i engage overdrive?just found the button on shift **** recently and when i press it a light appears on dash to tell me it is off.under what conditions should i turn it on?thanks in advance for any advice

 

Honestly I always have it engaged. I read somewhere that it's better on gas. However, when handling considerable hills, turn it off.

 

I'm oversimplifying but it keeps things simple. Your car is obviously and automatic with 4 speeds. overdrive is your 4th gear. Turning overdrive off turns off 4th gear, leaving you to only run 1st through 3rd. You will run with higher RPMs giving more power for climbing hills and passing cars on highway. Running constantly higher RPMs results in poor fuel economy.
If you've never used it before, there's no need to use it now (so dont worry about it), unless you're changing where you drive your car and do not desire for it to do so much gear hunting when climbing hills.

By default, overdrive is ON (no light appears on dashboard).

Hope this helps.

 

ok thanks for that info.and fast responce this site rocks

 

leave it on unless going down hills. It'll keep your car from speeding up down hills, and thus save your brakes. You don't need to dissengage it when going up hills, cuz an auto tranny will recognize that you need more power and drop to 2nd or 3rd. And yes, it is WAY more fuel efficient to keep it on

 

Or pulling a trailer when you want you want to keep the RPM's up.

As nodrogkam states, think if it as another gear. Or rare occations you may want a higher RPM or under some unusual driving conditions the trans may shift up and down too much for my liking.

But 99.99% of the time I have the O/D switch on.