Leave MT car in gear when braking, or go to neutral?

[phucheneh]

Here in Tennessee, we call that 'California rolling.'

...what do they call it in California? Can't be the same, that'd be like going to England and asking for an English muffin.

My 4cyl cars don't like 2nd gear starts. I only need first to get me rolling; very limited use. But if I ain't rolling (or I'm barely rolling but on a steep grade), I needs it. Could do second but it would probably put a lot more wear on the clutch. And really lug the engine down going up a hill. Heck, I've accidentally started in 3rd before and had success, though that simply means I instinctively fought off a stall and made the car move before my brain actually had time to say 'hey dumbass, you left it in third.'

The torque curve of a BMW 6, and even their current 4 cyls, has a heck of a lot more low-end grunt that your typical FWD NA 4cyl.

 

[Mark R]

Really ? Being in neutral is illegal ? Is that state dependant ? I know on my bike I never stay in neutral at a light but car, yeah why not...why hold the clutch in like that ?

When I learned to drive manual, the instructor specifically told me that the car should be in gear and clutch engaged at all times when driving, except when at a stop, or coming to a stop, or when changing gear. Any coasting, especially around corners or down hill would be regarded as an immediate fail in the driving test.

 

[ProchargeMe]

Here in Tennessee, we call that 'California rolling.'

...what do they call it in California? Can't be the same, that'd be like going to England and asking for an English muffin.

My 4cyl cars don't like 2nd gear starts. I only need first to get me rolling; very limited use. But if I ain't rolling (or I'm barely rolling but on a steep grade), I needs it. Could do second but it would probably put a lot more wear on the clutch. And really lug the engine down going up a hill. Heck, I've accidentally started in 3rd before and had success, though that simply means I instinctively fought off a stall and made the car move before my brain actually had time to say 'hey dumbass, you left it in third.'

The torque curve of a BMW 6, and even their current 4 cyls, has a heck of a lot more low-end grunt that your typical FWD NA 4cyl.

That's nothing man, i had a 1986 toyota pick up truck with the R22 motor, and 4 on the floor. I had loaded firewood up in the truck for my uncle and i started the truck up and took off in 4th gear (i was very inexperienced with a MT at the time) and it didn't even hiccup. I miss that old thing lol

 

[JulesMaximus]

Here in Tennessee, we call that 'California rolling.'

...what do they call it in California? Can't be the same, that'd be like going to England and asking for an English muffin.

My 4cyl cars don't like 2nd gear starts. I only need first to get me rolling; very limited use. But if I ain't rolling (or I'm barely rolling but on a steep grade), I needs it. Could do second but it would probably put a lot more wear on the clutch. And really lug the engine down going up a hill. Heck, I've accidentally started in 3rd before and had success, though that simply means I instinctively fought off a stall and made the car move before my brain actually had time to say 'hey dumbass, you left it in third.'

The torque curve of a BMW 6, and even their current 4 cyls, has a heck of a lot more low-end grunt that your typical FWD NA 4cyl.

In California we call it a violation of vehicle code 22450 or failure to come to a complete stop at a stop sign and a police officer will definitely ticket you for it.

 

[phucheneh]

In California we call it a violation of vehicle code 22450 or failure to come to a complete stop at a stop sign and a police officer will definitely ticket you for it.

I seriously hope this was a sarcastic response. If it was, congrats, you made me actually LOL.

If not, you make baby jesus cry.

Yes, we're aware rolling stop signs is illegal. Thanks for your input, Johnny San Diego.

edit: For clarification 'Johnny San Diego' would be like Johnny Knoxville, except instead of getting kicked in the nuts for money, he would walk around interjecting recitations of California Penal Code into random conversations.

 

[SSSnail]

Don't mind Mr. Pedantic up there, everybody here call it ”California stop”, because it's ironic. And that's how we roll.

 

[Black2na]

I think were all missing the big picture here. Lets give a golf clap to the OP for actully taking the time to buy and learn to drive a standard transmission! big credit to you sir. either way isnt wrong! welcome to the minority who can drive a manual transmission!

 

[roguerower]

2001 Honda Civic with 175k miles on it. First my dad and now I use lower gears and engine braking to help slow us in conjunction with braking. The car is still on it's original clutch and transmission so obviously it doesn't hurt the car.

 

[Rifter]

Any engine braking forces are considerably less than hitting the gas. You are technically correct, but the implication that OP would be 'saving' the transmission is silly.

I almost always leave my car in gear when slowing down or coasting. I will generally go into neutral rather than downshift to 1st, which is silly.

1) Engages fuel cut (hooray less gas)
2) Reduces braking effort and brake wear considerably
3) Shifting into neutral, particularly going down a hill is less safe than being in gear for the extremely rare case where brakes fail, or the more common case where you've got wet brakes and need to dry them off with a few pumps (happened to me last week)

I always shift into neutral and let the clutch out at stop lights and generally at stop signs.

1) Left leg is less tired
2) Less wear on the clutch (IMO, but there is no way a spinning clutch, even with little load, is not wearing)
3) Being in neutral at a stoplight is safer than holding in the clutch in the extremely rare case where your foot slips off the clutch and you lurch into traffic

Yup i agree with the above and do the same myself.

 

[phucheneh]

2001 Honda Civic with 175k miles on it. First my dad and now I use lower gears and engine braking to help slow us in conjunction with braking. The car is still on it's original clutch and transmission so obviously it doesn't hurt the car.

Doesn't hurt it at all. Will more frequent shifts increase wear? Yeah, but you're talking about a hell of a lot of shifts throughout the life of the trans. What has a much more significant impact is simply being smart and not abusing the trans.

E.g. Don't ride the clutch, don't dump the clutch. Make shifts confidently but don't hammer them; let the synchros do their work and feel it slip smoothly into gear.

Paying attention to this rather than ham-fisting can also save you from an accidental downshift- if you hit the 2 gate while going for 4, or 3 instead of 5, you should feel excessive resistance going into the gear...though sometimes you get 'lucky' and just manage to slip effortlessly into a gear that will put your engine in the death range of the RPM spectrum. But again, with practice, your reactions will be trained, so you'll also get warning when you start to let the clutch out, and hopefully you'll instantly say 'oh shiz' and stomp it back to the floor before you can over-rev.

If this is an '01 and has never had any kind of service to the trans, you may want to bleed some new fluid through the hydraulics. And adjust the shifter cables, if possible (will lessen neutral slop and make the gears easier to find).

 

[JulesMaximus]

I seriously hope this was a sarcastic response. If it was, congrats, you made me actually LOL.

If not, you make baby jesus cry.

Yes, we're aware rolling stop signs is illegal. Thanks for your input, Johnny San Diego.

edit: For clarification 'Johnny San Diego' would be like Johnny Knoxville, except instead of getting kicked in the nuts for money, he would walk around interjecting recitations of California Penal Code into random conversations.

I'm here all week! Tip your waitresses. And I'll be happy to look up other California vehicle code violations that you "out of staters" have so quaintly renamed.

 

[Jumpem]

Downshift through the gears. In gear and clutch in at stop lights. Leaving it in neutral is illegal.

 

[KrAzYaZnFLiP808]

Hey guys. let me chime in. Your talking about casual driving. Not race driving. honestly, their more of the same, but while your racing you do things faster. let em go into straight detail of how to drive a manual car casually. first things first.

Do not ever coast car going into complete stop, in gear or neutral, and or while holding clutch down. if in neutral you will have excessive wear on brakes. if you hold the cutch down while in gear, excessive wear to clutch. this is called riding the clutch. most beginners will do this afraid of stalling.

Do not ever rest your feet onthe clutch pedal. once your done shifting move your feet to rest pad. beginners will also do this because they feel its only a short time between shiftes. but it will come a habit, and your feet will be on clutch riding the clutch on freeway, unknowingly causing wear on clutch aswell. your putting alittle weight on the pedal causing the clutch not to give 100 percent power, and slips alittle without you knowing it.

depending on what car you have, their is certain mph per gear. you can tell by what speed and rpm you are going. to save on gas you would like to keep your rpm between idle 800rpm to around 3500rpm mosty. so you start off first gear till you reach 3500, look at mph, and shift gear. do that for rest of gears. thats the spot you should be in at what mph your at. for example

1st gear. 0-10 mph.
2nd gear. 10-25 mph
3rd gear 25-35 mph
4th geaer 35-45 mph
5th gear 45-60 mph

at what speed your at, thats the gear your going to be in. do not go from 60 mph and drop to neutral coming to a stop. very much wear to brakes. also do not be in 5th gear holding clutch down to complete stop either.

anticipate the stop. judge the distance. so as your slowingdown, you should downshift, at the rate your mph slowing down. gently press brakes, clutch all the way down, downshift, clutch up, watch rpm, clutch down while still holdingbrakes, downshift, clutch up, all the way through depnding on decrease of mph. right where you get to around 5mph, and idle of about 1000, you can either shift into neutral, and or hold the clutch down at stoplight. i would prefer neutral, but that depends on how long the stoplight is.

okay, now going into your 2nd problem. you feel you are too late too start off at stoplight, and moving your car. its because you are not anticipating the green light. while the other car moves. you their fussing around, shifing to first, and slowly disengaging the clutch. while the other car is already like 4 cars ahead. do not do this.

so, while you are on neutral, anticpaete the green light, shift to first, while still holding break, slowly disengage theclutch. assoon as you see the car to feel like it wants to go forward, depress the pedaljust aittle to make it not go forward. thats your sweet spot. grab point. when the car moves ahead, all you have to do is let go brakes, and slowly release pedal hitting the sweet spot, and you will go forward.

alsodonot press gas while releasing clutch.this is another form of riding the clutch. all u need is around 1200 rpms to do this. if you find sweet spot, you actually donotneed to press gas.but some cars are different.

i hoped i helped you with your problems, and this is would be he most straight forward way of driving a manual car properly. now if you want to know how to race a manual car, we can make another thread for that. btw this iis typed on ipad, so i was lazy in correcting spelling.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

E.g. Don't ride the clutch, don't dump the clutch. Make shifts confidently but don't hammer them; let the synchros do their work and feel it slip smoothly into gear.

Along the lines of "feeling" the shift, I have recently been trying to learn to shift without using the clutch. This requires "rev matching" but it's really not rocket science or a bunch of math if you have decent feel for the gears through the shifter. How hard or easy it is to move the shifter into and out of gear tells you how well in sync you are. This is something that I wish I had learned a long time ago, so OP, this might help you.

Start driving and get into, say, 3rd gear. Now (with the clutch all the way out and your foot on the gas, keeping at a constant speed) try to pull the shifter out of gear, gently. It will resist pretty hard, and if you manage to pull it out then you will hear a horrible grinding sound. So don't do it, but just feel the resistance and how it wants to stay in gear even when you put a fair amount of force on the shifter.

However, if you do this right when you lift your foot off the gas after accelerating slightly, it will pull out of gear very easily and with no noises. This is because the revs are matched, which essentially means that there is no torque being transmitted through the transmission. The wheels are turning, causing the transmission to spin at a certain speed, and the engine is also turning at that same speed, so the engine is not speeding up or slowing down the transmission, and the transmission is not speeding up or slowing down the engine. Again, a *slight* push on the gas to accelerate slightly and then an immediate foot-off-the-gas at the same time that you pull the lever out of gear and into neutral.

The trick is really to put pressure on the shifter (enough pressure that it would move out of gear if you were pushing in the clutch pedal) before you start this trick. So you are pulling, not hard enough to pop it out of gear *except* when it hits that perfect moment and the same amount of pressure causes it to come out easily. I feel like I am not explaining this correctly. It is wordy but hopefully it gets the point across.

Now shifting into gear without the clutch is a little harder, but it's the same principle. You have to feel it. Say you are shifting into 5th gear without using the clutch, starting in neutral. So you have the shifter over in the correct position, and you are pushing it like it should go into 5th gear (if you were using the clutch) but not very hard. You keep pushing on the shifter with the exact same pressure throughout this procedure. You've got enough pressure on it that you can feel resistance. Then you rev the engine and let the revs drop. At some point along the line, the revs will match perfectly and the shifter will move forward and go into gear. You have not changed the pressure that you're putting on the shifter, but the same moderate amount of pressure is now strong enough to shift into gear when you have the revs matched.

I always thought that there was some mental magic to rev-matching, that truck drivers had all memorized the exact ratios of engine speeds vs. road speeds for each gear, and that their right feet somehow had ridiculous precision that would allow them to rev the engine to exactly 2650 RPM to get the perfect match. But it's actually based on feel, and it's really not that hard; it's just pulling or pushing on the shifter, and feeling the transmission resist until suddenly it doesn't.

 

[thedarkwolf]

What is fun is having the clutch hydraulics go out and having no choice but to drive without the clutch. Too start you have to put the car in 1st gear engine off, push the clutch in just so the engine will crank, and use the starter to get the car moving and running. Then coming to a stop you have to kill the engine so you can get the trans back into 1st. Really sucks since you always seem to hit every single red light otw home. Pretty amazing how steep of a hill you can get moving on just using the starter lol.

Thanks mazda and your wonderful clutch hydraulics.

 

[exdeath]

Had to do that Friday. Clutch cable broke, haven't had time to see where yet.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Obligatory...

Neutral wastes fuel.

I would think that neutral/clutch in accomplish the same thing - allow the engine RPMs to freewheel down to min sustainable levels.
With the clutch engages and in gear you are using more fuels.

 

[yhelothar]

I always do heel toe downshift through all the gears on my Miata. Why? It engages you into the driving experience more, it sounds cool, you have instant response when you need to accelerate again, and did I mention it's fun?

 

[exdeath]

I would think that neutral/clutch in accomplish the same thing - allow the engine RPMs to freewheel down to min sustainable levels.
With the clutch engages and in gear you are using more fuels.

DFCO

 

[exdeath]

I always do heel toe downshift through all the gears on my Miata. Why? It engages you into the driving experience more, it sounds cool, you have instant response when you need to accelerate again, and did I mention it's fun?

Perfectly legit reason for doing it on the street. :awe:

 

[Throckmorton]

I always do heel toe downshift through all the gears on my Miata. Why? It engages you into the driving experience more, it sounds cool, you have instant response when you need to accelerate again, and did I mention it's fun?

Am I the only one who can't heel toe? I don't have the dexterity in my heel to do it

 

[brainhulk]

Am I the only one who can't heel toe? I don't have the dexterity in my heel to do it

all you need is practice. Eventually you don't even think about it anymore. I have a pedal extender though for my s2000.

http://www.amazon.com/RAZO-RP82A-Spo...pedal+extender

 

[exdeath]

Am I the only one who can't heel toe? I don't have the dexterity in my heel to do it

Pedals and shoes have more to do with it.

 

[JulesMaximus]

I would think that neutral/clutch in accomplish the same thing - allow the engine RPMs to freewheel down to min sustainable levels.
With the clutch engages and in gear you are using more fuels.

The fuel injection system of any modern car will cut fuel completely while in gear during engine braking. In neutral at idle fuel is necessary to keep the engine running.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Do not ever coast car going into complete stop, in gear or neutral, and or while holding clutch down. if in neutral you will have excessive wear on brakes. if you hold the cutch down while in gear, excessive wear to clutch. this is called riding the clutch. most beginners will do this afraid of stalling.

This is not riding the clutch.

Do not ever rest your feet onthe clutch pedal. once your done shifting move your feet to rest pad. beginners will also do this because they feel its only a short time between shiftes. but it will come a habit, and your feet will be on clutch riding the clutch on freeway, unknowingly causing wear on clutch aswell. your putting alittle weight on the pedal causing the clutch not to give 100 percent power, and slips alittle without you knowing it.

This is riding the clutch.