Any harm to switching from auto mode 'D' to manual mode and back while driving?

Originally Posted by Lee123

Maybe everyone else knows this, but I just noticed today. Moving the shifter lever to the left for manual does more than just changing the shifting to manual. When driving along at 50 on a flat road the tach indicates about 1700 while the display says D. If I move the lever to the left for manual and do nothing else, the display changes from D to 5 and the RPM's go up to about 2100 or 2200. The first time that happened I thought maybe I had started up a little hill right before moving the shifter, but I've tried it about 10 times now. Looks like it shifts from 6th to 5th when putting it in the manual mode at 50 mph. I guess it thinks anyone who wants to shift manually would still be in 5th at 50 mph, which is a reasonable guess.