I hate all the gears except 3rd

danlightbulb

danlightbulb

danlightbulb

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Joined
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3rd gear is so great. It's like it has power all the way from 10mph to 100mph. It's not whiny or jerky like 1st. It's not over in a few seconds like 2nd. And it's not boring like 4th, 5th or 6th.

Is there a car that eliminates the horribleness of 1st and 2nd and gives the 3rd gear experience all of the time?
 
Every car is different. In a decent revvy n/a engine every gear is fine whereas a standard diesel is going to be crap in 1st and 2nd.
My Mondeo ST220 has imo an incredibley long 2nd gear which I regularly stay in until 60mph whereas the more powerful Focus ST I had before it has a short rubbish 2nd gear.
 
danlightbulb said:
3rd gear is so great. It's like it has power all the way from 10mph to 100mph. It's not whiny or jerky like 1st. It's not over in a few seconds like 2nd. And it's not boring like 4th, 5th or 6th.

Is there a car that eliminates the horribleness of 1st and 2nd and gives the 3rd gear experience all of the time?
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Depends completely on the car, some will do 45mph in first and 78mph in second and have no issue with jerky or being over too quick

I guess you are talking about a diesel?
 
Dav4 said:
Every car is different. In a decent revvy n/a engine every gear is fine whereas a standard diesel is going to be crap in 1st and 2nd.
My Mondeo ST220 has imo an incredibley long 2nd gear which I regularly stay in until 60mph whereas the more powerful Focus ST I had before it has a short rubbish 2nd gear.
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Precisely. Though I must agree that third is usually the most enjoyable gear. :D
 
The gear ratios in my daily hack (Kia Soul diseasal) aren't too horrible. But it could really use a 6th gear to get the revs down when travelling long distances, especially in France.

Pa's Landy that I was rocking around in last week has comedy gearing. 1st is so short as to genuinely be utterly useless on-road. 2nd gets you rolling, 3rd gets you up to 25 mph, and 4th works from there all the way up to the dizzying heights of 65mph where the lack of an overdrive or a 5th gear halts things.
 
Housey said:
Yea. A DAF
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I had one of those once.

850cc air cooled twin.

between 5-30 nothing would touch it. but outside this range the limited power and two stage centrifugal clutch actually made you a very good predictive driver.

In particular you became really good at never having to stop.

EG approaching roundabouts, instead of flying up to the back of the queue of waiting traffic and then waiting, I would slow much earlier so that when I arrived there was nobody in front of me, and if I got it just right, there would be a gap on the roundabout for me to slide into without stopping. this is something that I still do to this day. Amazingly following drivers rarely seem to understand what I am doing, even though it makes their lives easier too
 
The DAF Variomatic wasn't it? We had a few of them around where we lived and passed by them everyday on the walk to work. It seemed like every week there was a new bit of rust on each.
 
pastymuncher said:
The DAF Variomatic wasn't it? We had a few of them around where we lived and passed by them everyday on the walk to work. It seemed like every week there was a new bit of rust on each.
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Yep, gearbox actually worked very well. Volvo continued to use it in the early 300 series cars but coupled with the Renault 1.4 engine. They were actually quite nice to drive.

Interesting trivia-the way the gearbox worked meant that you could go as fast in reverse as you could in drive.
 
Dav4 said:
Every car is different. In a decent revvy n/a engine every gear is fine whereas a standard diesel is going to be crap in 1st and 2nd.
My Mondeo ST220 has imo an incredibley long 2nd gear which I regularly stay in until 60mph whereas the more powerful Focus ST I had before it has a short rubbish 2nd gear.
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I have a 2.4 honda petrol which is pretty revvy. But I still don't like 1st or 2nd. They are too harsh, jerky, noisy.
 
I find 4th my favourite in my Impreza, 3rd seems to run out of puff too quickly.

But what you really want is an automatic or electric car to have that relentless thrust sensation.
 
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