[dhanushs]

Originally Posted by aktarcar

My one friend used to shift directly from third to fifth or sometimes from 1st to third. Does skipping gears in that fashion cause any harm in long run? Is it a smarter way to drive than regular?

For optimum performance and to keep the engine in its power band, you need to go through all the gears. However, there are certain circumstances. Eg: A sedate driver overtaking a truck in a car with poor low end, and brilliant top end. He can revv it up in 3rd just to overtake and after gaining the momentum can directly shift to 5th and cruise. No harm in it.

Again, most of the other times, just like I mentioned before there is no point in skipping gears. May be if you are looking for performance, the max you can toggle is, manually match the revs while shifting gears.

[supremeBaleno]

In modern cars, starting off in 2nd gear would be a wrong driving method.

Originally Posted by aktarcar

My one friend used to shift directly from third to fifth or sometimes from 1st to third. Does skipping gears in that fashion cause any harm in long run? Is it a smarter way to drive than regular?

Don't know if it is a smarter way to drive, but I regularly do that. Whether it is harmful or not, depends on characteristics of the car - gearing (tall vs short), torque availability etc. On my Baleno, I regularly skip 4th gear and move directly from 3rd to 5th and sometimes from 2nd to 4th - the car's brilliant engine does not feel strained at all. But I would not do it on our 1.3P Swift - where the engine feels laboured at low speeds in high gears.

[Added_flavor]

Folks when we downshift is it necessary to follow 5-4-3-2-1 pattern? Does shifting from say 5-2 have any adverse affect? Of course I mean at appropriate vehicle speed.

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by Added_flavor

Folks when we downshift is it necessary to follow 5-4-3-2-1 pattern? Does shifting from say 5-2 have any adverse affect? Of course I mean at appropriate vehicle speed.

As long as you downshift to the appropriate gear, it is not a problem to shift from 5th to the 1st.

Say you are cruising at 60 km/hr on the 5th and encounter a speed breaker. It is totally fine if you downshift to the 2nd and pass the speedbreaker.

[rajeev k]

Originally Posted by DrunkenMonk

This habit is a throwback to the bad old days of Amby's and Fiat's that had synchromesh gears only in the higher gears (3rd and 4th? need to confirm this). That required one to press the clutch twice for each gear change - from 1st to 2nd, for example - with a lot of "feel" being involved in the process to get the gears synchronized. Lots of people simply ignored the 1st gear unless going uphill.

There is no need to use these techniques as all gears-boxes are synchromesh now-a-days. The worse one could do starting off in 2nd is to wear-out the clutch faster than normal.

Say good old days of Ambassadors and fiats.

Originally Posted by Nash24

Its always best to take off in 1st gear, your clutch wear and tear will be less.
Only if its a downward slope, wherein once you leave brakes the car gain slow momemtum on its own, then you can downshift straight to 2nd and take off. In all other circumstances starting on 1st Gear is the right option.

Gear ratio is the in thing here. Pramod has put it rightly.
Double-de-clutching is for going down the gears in constant mesh gearing like in heavy vehicles of yore. Usually in Ambassadors from 4th to 3rd this helps though these gears are synchromeshed.

Originally Posted by pramodpk

The ambassador 4 speed gear box had synchromesh in 2nd, 3rd and 4th gear. This meant that the 1st gear does not engage while the vehicle is in motion. No double de clutching is required. It was common practice to start petrol amby's in 2nd gear. The gear ratios were different from current cars which have a short 1st gear. Hence the amby could pull in 2nd gear without much difficulty. However it is not adivisable to do so in current generation cars as the 2nd gear is quite tall compared to first.

Further there is a school of thought that clutches of front wheel drive cars wear more than rear wheel drive cars.

[RiGOD]

Reviving a slightly old thread. While driving my Classic 1.4 TDCi in dense traffic today I noticed that the car crawled really comfortably with no lugging at all when I started off from the second gear. Whenever I started of from first, the car crawled at a particular speed when the clutch was released partially and on full (and smooth) release the car gave a sudden forward jerk and I had to upshift to second to get it crawling smoothly. Also found that I could release the clutch more easily and faster when I started off in second and had to shift to neutral only at stops. So is it ok to start off in second, provided there is minimal clutch usage?

[a4anurag]

Originally Posted by RiGOD

So is it ok to start off in second, provided there is minimal clutch usage?

I am not sure if it is good to do it.

The first gear is shorter than the second so in B2B traffic the car will lurch forward faster in 2nd gear forcing you to brake. So isn't it better to put it in 1st and let it glide naturally without any accelerator input?

If you have problems like vibrations when releasing clutch then I guess you need to check it.

Anurag.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by RiGOD

Reviving a slightly old thread. While driving my Classic 1.4 TDCi in dense traffic today I noticed that the car crawled really comfortably with no lugging at all when I started off from the second gear. Whenever I started of from first, the car crawled at a particular speed when the clutch was released partially and on full (and smooth) release the car gave a sudden forward jerk and I had to upshift to second to get it crawling smoothly. Also found that I could release the clutch more easily and faster when I started off in second and had to shift to neutral only at stops. So is it ok to start off in second, provided there is minimal clutch usage?

As long as the car isn't loaded, ie the car moves forward without you having to revv the engine or hold at half clutch for long, it shouldn't be damaging. Theoretically the taller gear will put more load on the engine while starting up from rest. But due to the immense torque provided, it should be good enough to get the car going. This also depends upon gearing. In my WagonR, second gear is quite tall. Hence this won't be possible. Guess its quite short in your car.

But nuff said, it's not good for crawling in traffic. First gear is best for this. I do try some stuff like not using clutch while shifting etc, but this s shouldn't be done frequently.

[Sheel]

I have seen this in the DI Marshal, Spacio etc and they moved w/o much hesitation.

You need to move in second or not will depend that whether you feel a lag or not, I bet you will (if moving off in 2nd) and will need to press the A pedal more & burn the C pedal. What is the point?

Most drivers (professional, cabbies) rev a turbo engine while starting it up & shutting it down, they do not know the turbo idle rule, so what more do you expect from them? If they could manage to crawl it in 5th, they would have done that. Hence, an AT is good for chauffeur driven cars.

[RiGOD]

Originally Posted by audioholic

I do try some stuff like not using clutch while shifting etc, but this shouldn't be done frequently.

Could you shed some light on how you're doing that?

Originally Posted by Sheel

You need to move in second or not will depend that whether you feel a lag or not, I bet you will (if moving off in 2nd) and will need to press the A pedal more & burn the C pedal. What is the point?

Well as I mentioned in my earlier post, the car starts off from second without any lugging and with minimal clutch usage.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by RiGOD

Could you shed some light on how you're doing that.

As long as the speed of the car matches the revvs, the gears slot in perfectly from 1st to 2nd, all the way to fifth gear. So under sedate driving, the gears slot perfectly without and grinding noise or anything. Trick is to not force the gear lever. If the revs are matching the speed of the car, it will slot in automatically. Haven't tried it on the SX4 though.

[tomraven99]

Read that the AWD Duster has a low range first gear. One can start off in 2nd gear under normal driving conditions and use 1st gear for off road situations.

[HappyRoadie]

Reviving this old thread. I have a Tata Safari Dicor. I have noticed that my driver reverses the car and when its time to move the car forward he directly slots it in 2nd gear and moves on. Is it a correct practice? Also 6 months back I had to get the clutch plates changed ( car had travelled around 43k kms then). The excuse my driver gave was that since the car is driven in bumper to bumper traffic thats why clutch plate got damaged. Hope to hear soon.


Regards

[hiran77]

It all depends on your cars gearing(ratios) . Duster AWD manual has it mentioned . Use 1st gear only on inclines. level roads start with 2nd. this is primarily because first two gears are very short in order to be similar to crawl feature in conventional jeeps.

similarly my ikon 1.6 has enough power to move from stand still without slipping the clutch or straining the engine. so Have always used second gear from stand still. maybe stock might not be easy. my car with numerous mods can glide over humps in 3rd gear too No signs of clutch wear.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by HappyRoadie

Reviving this old thread. I have a Tata Safari Dicor. I have noticed that my driver reverses the car and when its time to move the car forward he directly slots it in 2nd gear and moves on. Is it a correct practice? Also 6 months back I had to get the clutch plates changed ( car had travelled around 43k kms then). The excuse my driver gave was that since the car is driven in bumper to bumper traffic thats why clutch plate got damaged. Hope to hear soon.

Regards

I have seen this practice with almost all drivers of Boleros/Scorpios/Safaris. Due to the adequate low end torque, you don't really need to rev the engine beyond 1500 rpm in slow moving traffic. Don't know what exactly it does to the vehicle mechanically, but, most of the folks doing it, do so to avoid the frequent 1-2 shifts, IMO. Typically, in slow moving traffic you can coast along easily in 2nd. So instead of moving between 1-2, most folks keep it in 2nd all the time in such traffic.

Maybe your driver is also habituated to this and uses 2nd to start off instead of 1. As for clutch replacement, unless he slips it too much in 2nd, I doubt starting off in 2nd would have any adverse effect on clutch life. If the clutch wears off again in the next 40k kms, maybe you need to check his driving style more carefully.