Does driving @ low speed in hi-gear & skipping gears harm the engine?

Matt82 · 24 Oct 2011 at 20:53

mechanical sympathy...

being gentle on the throttle when the engine is cold
being gentle with gear changes
making sure you know its got the right fluid levels (ie having a faint idea oil might be low, but then putting off checking it for a month)

mechanical sympathy is, in short, not treating your car like most females treat their cars!

by the sounds it of, your car is leading a charmed life

Fr0dders · 24 Oct 2011 at 21:03

an unsympathetic gear change would be...

Flooring the throttle, snatching off the accelerator, quickly stamping down on the clutch, changing gear as fast as possible, and then immediately stamping back down on the accelerator again.

To do it sympathetically, take your time, don't rush it, give the gearbox time after you come off the accelerator before re-applying throttle again.

And when you do, re-apply it gently, and gently ease up on the clutch, don't snatch your changes.

You're on the road on the way to work or whatever, not on a special stage

Moothead2 · 24 Oct 2011 at 21:19

I only skip gears either when I'm starting off going down a hill where I usually put it in 2nd and when I'm going down the gears say from 4th to 2nd. Then again I am still a learner so that may change when I pass my test

.

Conscript · 24 Oct 2011 at 21:21

MrLOL said:
an unsympathetic gear change would be...

Flooring the throttle, snatching off the accelerator, quickly stamping down on the clutch, changing gear as fast as possible, and then immediately stamping back down on the accelerator again.

To do it sympathetically, take your time, don't rush it, give the gearbox time after you come off the accelerator before re-applying throttle again.

And when you do, re-apply it gently, and gently ease up on the clutch, don't snatch your changes.

You're on the road on the way to work or whatever, not on a special stage

I unfortunately did this whilst out for a drive in the country yesterday. After 5 miles stuck behind a ******* camper van on some really nice roads, I finally got the chance to overtake. Screamed to the redline in second then rushed the clutch on the upshift. Nasty gnashing of gears which was very painful and highly embarrassing. Sometimes the quick gear change is actually counter productive. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, and all that jazz.

Begbie · 24 Oct 2011 at 21:23

shoes said:
Yeah but I bet that light was still amber when you crossed the line

Nope, I always wait for green

Fr0dders · 24 Oct 2011 at 21:59

Conscript said:
I unfortunately did this whilst out for a drive in the country yesterday. After 5 miles stuck behind a ******* camper van on some really nice roads, I finally got the chance to overtake. Screamed to the redline in second then rushed the clutch on the upshift. Nasty gnashing of gears which was very painful and highly embarrassing. Sometimes the quick gear change is actually counter productive. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, and all that jazz.

doing it every once in a while isn't going to break your gearbox

Doing it every time you change gears like some women seem to do however .... that probably will

CaptainRAVE · 24 Oct 2011 at 22:04

Jokester said:
I do this as well, I would be more worried about the gear box?

This is what I would have though too. Can't imagine it saves fuel though.

simulatorman said:
I done it many a time in a hire car.

lol, the best time to try out new things

- most of which have been suggested by OcUKers

GTAMADDOG · 24 Oct 2011 at 22:15

I usually only miss out gears when changing down. My driving instructor taught me to utilise the brakes more to slow you down rather than engine braking (which I was doing to start with). So I usually brake and then only change into the appropriate gear once the revs have dropped to about 1000RPM.

Instructor or examiner didn't care about me going up through every gear so that's how I've always done it.

mjt · 24 Oct 2011 at 22:19

GTAMADDOG said:
I usually only miss out gears when changing down. My driving instructor taught me to utilise the brakes more to slow you down rather than engine braking (which I was doing to start with). So I usually brake and then only change into the appropriate gear once the revs have dropped to about 1000RPM.

Instructor or examiner didn't care about me going up through every gear so that's how I've always done it.

IMHO this is the worst way to brake. Engine braking F T W. And you get to blip the throttle to hear your lovely zorst.

People who brake too much annoy me. Especially on the motorway in busy traffic.
How is it that I can manage to follow the car in front without using the brakes, yet they hit the brakes every 10 seconds? (Automatic allowing)

snowdog · 24 Oct 2011 at 23:31

In my cars the car has never minded this, 2 to 5 no problem, in my dads Corolla the gearbox doesn't like going from 2nd to 5 though and makes an odd loud bang noise... Why do I do this you ask? To get up to speed asap but once I'm up to speed gears 3 and 4 are pointless as booting through them means breaking the speed limit

.

I have heard some people say not to keep the revs to low on a cold engine, definitely don't boot it but also don't switch gears too early, give it time to warm up and keep the oil pressure high by keeping around 2000 rpm at least for petrol cars...

mjt said:
People who brake too much annoy me. Especially on the motorway in busy traffic.
How is it that I can manage to follow the car in front without using the brakes, yet they hit the brakes every 10 seconds? (Automatic allowing)

Absolutely hate the morons who do that, not just on the motorway but also on bends on b roads, bends you can perfectly blast through at 70-80 kph, people brake from 50 to 40 kph for, stupid old farts with their foot on the brake even when I'm driving behind them I manage to do without ever touching the brake in the time they touch it 10 times!!! Stop bloody braking release the throttle sooner instead you moron! On motorways it really boils my blood, afraid motorists who brake for the tiniest thing causing traffic jams because of the domino effect of cars braking, let it roll out you idiot stop causing traffic jams!!!

//rant over
/// people who use the brake for every single bend are morons imho

Atom · 26 Oct 2011 at 01:02

1 3 5 for me. Once it's in fifth it stays there until revs fall low enough it can't handle it.

I have a auto box on my truck. POS. Not a patch on a 12 or 16 speed manual.

Flukester · 26 Oct 2011 at 09:27

GTAMADDOG said:
I usually only miss out gears when changing down. My driving instructor taught me to utilise the brakes more to slow you down rather than engine braking (which I was doing to start with). So I usually brake and then only change into the appropriate gear once the revs have dropped to about 1000RPM.

Instructor or examiner didn't care about me going up through every gear so that's how I've always done it.

I'd say this is bad as doing this the majority of the time you are in the wrong gear to 'get out of trouble' should you need to. You are also losing out on a lot of engine braking help

I must admit at moment I always come down 1 gear at a time, I had to do this on the bike and in the CTR which revs like a bike it just feels right....

The only people who seem to shortshift are taxi drivers who drive uber low rev diesels with no rpm, they are in 5th / 6th by 3mph for some reason

squerble · 26 Oct 2011 at 10:32

Am I the only one who goes around town at ~30mph in 3rd gear? It sits at around 2-2.5k RPM (varying between about 28 and 35mph) in my little 1.2 Fiesta. Still get over 42mpg.

rG-tom · 26 Oct 2011 at 10:33

My car won't let me put it in 4th at 30, which was strange at first when using manual modr! It wont let you direct a gear that will drop below 1k rpm

mrk · 26 Oct 2011 at 10:33

If you're cruising around then 3rd/4th won't matter, your MPG will still be good because you're just cruising and the engine isn't having to hustle around. Your engine will be at the top of the bell curve.

mrk · 26 Oct 2011 at 10:34

squerble said:
Am I the only one who goes around town at ~30mph in 3rd gear? It sits at around 2-2.5k RPM (varying between about 28 and 35mph) in my little 1.2 Fiesta. Still get over 42mpg.

If you're cruising around then 3rd/4th won't matter, your MPG will still be good because you're just cruising and the engine isn't having to hustle around. Your engine will be at the top of the bell curve.

I sometimes cruise in 3rd at 30, sometimes 4th and occasionally in 5th if the road is extra long and open. Makes little difference to MPG as the engine is just that, cruising at a constant speed.

squerble · 26 Oct 2011 at 10:37

mrk said:
If you're cruising around then 3rd/4th won't matter, your MPG will still be good because you're just cruising and the engine isn't having to hustle around. Your engine will be at the top of the bell curve.

I find the extra responsiveness (more engine braking, easier accel etc) helps as well as I barely ever have to brake or use much accelerator pedal (I do understand the physics behind it). I've just always been surprised by the amount of people who seem to shove it in 5th at 25mph to go around town and "Save fuel" when I've found the opposite to be true.

Moeks · 26 Oct 2011 at 13:19

I used to block change quite a lot on my ST220 (the last manual car I had prior to this one in a sea of autos) ...but the Volvo diesel I have now doesn't respond so well to it, you can do it just fine but the power-band is so narrow that it's often not very helpful. There is a big jump from 2nd to 3rd gear and a fair step to 4th after that. Really using 4th at less than 40mph feels ...wrong, the engine is bellow it's ideal rpm and you can really feel it. Even at 60mph 6th still isn't much use, that doesn't come in till 70mph really.

Where as the ST220 I had, which also had a 6 speed gearbox had a much wider and more flexible power band so you could play with the gears much more freely. It did have 100bhp more power and 2 more cylinders to boot, but actually had less torque.

I often hear people say you can let a diesel drop to next to no revs and it's fine ...well actually that's not really the case at all in my experience, diesels are more sensitive to being out of their power-band than petrol engines are in my experience. I do and have done far more cog-swapping driving diesels than I ever have in petrol cars.

Vonhelmet · 26 Oct 2011 at 13:42

When I'm changing down, I'll brake and then change when I'm ready to go again, and I'll only change down ahead of that if I'm going to stall it by doing otherwise.

Going up, if I need to I'll keep the pressure on in a lower gear until I'm up to speed. This is usually the case when I'm joining a motorway with a short slip road. The other day I did 2-5 a couple of times, once when joining the M6 North from one of the junctions by Stoke where you have to go round a mentally long tight bend really slowly before joining a busy section with poor visibility to the right and a not terribly long sliproad, and once when changing lanes to get out of a traffic jam on a lane that was due to exit in a few hundred yards, trying to join the rest of the traffic which was still moving smoothly.

Scania · 27 Oct 2011 at 11:12

Vonhelmet said:
The other day I did 2-5 a couple of times, once when joining the M6 North from one of the junctions by Stoke where you have to go round a mentally long tight bend really slowly before joining a busy section with poor visibility to the right and a not terribly long sliproad

Jct 15 - right next to my base depot.

You think its bad, try the same with a loaded HGV, bloody scary & dangerous imo - its a very badly designed junction.