Is it safe to accelerate with 2nd gear in an automatic transmission?
It’s safe, you won’t damage anything in your transmission. You won’t burn out the clutch packs / brake bands or whatever because it doesn’t slip them to get the car going. The extra torque needed to drive the car in a higher gear is produced by the torque converter, so taking off in second gear MAY make the torque converter a little hotter, but only slightly, and the transmission cooler should take care of it without a problem. I don’t know why you’d want to take off in 2nd anyway, it’s not like you’ll use any less fuel. And if all you do is just select “2” on your gear selector, it’ll still take off in 1st anyway, unless you have like a “Lock” button or something on your transmission.
