[Closed] Using *only* gears 2, 4 and 6 in a car - OK or not?

Still wasting fuel. If you rev high enough to be able to go from 2nd to 4th, you could have changed into 3rd earlier at lower revs and hence saved fuel.

If she can't drive smoothly in 1st, 3rd and 5th then that's poor technique, nothing to do with those gears. Depending on how low the revs go when she up-shifts then she might be putting more stress in the DMF or on the engine components since for a given acceleration at lower revs there has to be more torque.

Pointless, inefficient, slightly damaging and noisier.

not really okay tbh. If she can drive smoothly using 2nd 4th & 6th then she should be able to drive smoothly using 1st 3rd and 5th as well. By pinning you in the seat and lurching you forwards as some kind of demonstration as to why she refuses to use the other three gears, she was obviously dropping the clutch way to quickly on purpose.

My car (2.8L) will pull away from low speeds in high gears but as Molgrips says it's totally pointless. Better to keep it in the correct gear for the speed it's being driven at imho.

Depends on the car.

In both of my Toyotas 1st is useless on a damp road as you just wheel spin; so setting off in 2nd which isn't that much longer than 1st helps.

Following from that it all depends on how much of the rev range you're using.
The T-Sport red lines at 7500rpm and due to the VVTI and Lift doesn't really tail off in power until you reach the limit.

This means that if I need to boot it out of for example a sliproad (of which there are plenty here due to a desire to save money) I can easily be doing 70 in 2nd or 3rd. At which point along with the sudden range anxiety caused by the fuel gauge dropping rapidly there is absolutely no point going to any other gear than 6th as Iv'e reached cruising speed.

For less extreme situations going through the all the gears is also sometimes pointless as the acceleration and gear profiles make 4th to 6th a comfortable change for the engine under more sedate driving.

Basically being a petrol with such a big rev range, the short shifts of a 6 speed box for road use are pointless.

C’mon.. some autos are 7 speed and have been for a couple of years.. see Merc.

Every day's a school day. My car only has 5 gears and I've never driven one with 6. I genuinely didn't know that was a common thing now!

When I suggested that going through the gears might be better, she gave a 10 minute demo of why not by alternately pinning me back in the seat and nutting the windscreen as she shifted through the gears.

Skipping gears is called a 'block change' and is perfectly acceptable IMO, as nwallace has pointed out there's no point going 3-4-5-6 when 3-6 is perfectly acceptable and in theory less changes = less wear.

As for wearing out the gearbox ..... highly unlikely (unless said car is french of course).

Historically first was only ever used for towing or steep hillstarts, I doubt she's doing any harm starting in 2nd.

All that being said, only *ever* using 2-4-6 is a bit weird, but then if we were all the same the world would be a pretty dull place.

I would imagine if you live somewhere relatively flat it would be ok, however if you lived somewhere that was particularly hilly then you would need to use all the gears (this is why it will have 6 gears)

I'm not making this up - I literally fell asleep reading this thread! Got to page 2, about 4th post.. and suddenly woke myself up. At my desk. I need to find some work to do 😆

Some fascinating responses and I am, as ever, in awe at the levels of knowledge on this forum. I’m afraid that curiosity’s got the better of me and I’ve been out and had a go at the 246 thing myself and, actually, although it feels completely wrong, it’s surprisingly easy to do. No juddering, no over-revving, no slipping. I can see how she’s got into it (sort of). In complete contrast, I’ve relayed some of the comments to Mrs T and asked her to try the 135 routine instead to “balance it up a bit”. Jeez. Not an experience I’m in a rush to repeat if I’m honest, not unless we’re entering the gumball rally. Very aggressive indeed and practically undrivable (had a go myself too on a quiet backroad and it’s undrivable). It also seems v notchy going into 135 (1 to 3 especially), and lots of grinding of gears, but slips nicely into 246. No notchiness at all going 123456. Does that make sense?
PS Sweet dreams DezB 🙂

As pointed out above, skipping the occasional gear is fine. It's all about knowing which gear to be in to suit the driving conditions and that means using all 6 gears.

Always starting in 2nd sounds like a bad idea. I used to drive a 3L V6 Mondeo at that was very easy to stall due to the DMF protecting itself. A gentle start in 1st was always the safest bet at a busy junction.

135 sounds even more odd than 246 though 🙂

I drive a DSG now so let the gearbox do all the work - and it uses all 7 gears to maximise economy.

Regarding the notchiness...I'm guessing the car is designed to go up through the gears sequentially - so all the linkages will be designed with this in mind...

This thread is proper partridge. Thirty IT dads all flustered trying to tell missy that she's doing DRIVING wrong 😀

Who gives a flying fuschia. It's her Range Rover Sport and it works for her. And anyway, we've had an explanation of why she does it - to allow space and access to her bag of girl-accoutrements. Which I think is genius. Necessity is the mother of invention etc...

What about using 23456 and just skipping 1? It could be you have a faulty gearbox if all the odd gears are hard to use.

How high do you have to rev in 2 to get straight to 4?

My Volvo handbook tells me that I should always use 2nd gear to get moving unless the car is heavily loaded or a steep hills tart.

I regularly skip 4&5th too.

Not very high at all. Rev up in 2nd as normal, shift into 4 and it pulls easily without any protestation in 4th and then into 6th. Seriously, it really doesn’t *seem* to cause any mechanical ill effects when doing it, although I take the point that it *could* be causing problems, hence my original query. I find it a lot more difficult to do that MrsT, who really could be driving Miss Daisy, she’s that smooth.

(That reply to Molegrips)

Rev up in 2nd as normal, shift into 4 and it pulls easily without any protestation in 4th

Then you could've shifted into 3rd earlier.

Not reading all that but block shifting a manual is fine.

Leonard had some very specific advice for abusing autoboxes.
And a wonderful, logical explanation as to why it was beneficial to do so.
He was right, as usual.

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I miss Len.

Who said it was a Rangi ?

When I had my 130i (265 bhp 3 litre straight six) it would not be labouring and easily keep up with normal traffic in 6th gear from 35mph from memory, so there was no need to use all the gears. I also used to jump gears, mainly 1-2-3-5 in my Golf V5 (5 speed gearbox) and gears 1-2-4-6 in the 130.

With enough power and torque etc you are not going to cause a problem, certainly not anything to worry about wear wise in my opinion. Also expect the large engine and therefore stronger clutch etc are more than capable of coping with starting in 2nd.

could’ve

^^^
Ditto with my 3L Ford, it was very easy to become a lazy driver and probably not a problem mechanically to drive it in such a fashion. But not ideal, and certainly not the most efficient way to drive...

I had an old fiat panda.

By the end it was anyones guess what gear you'd selected.

Not the most efficient way to drive

If she's getting better fuel economy than you and is a smoother/better driver than you despite only using half the gears then, sorry buddy, but you must be a really shit driver.

Fair play, she sounds like a good driver. But how much better could she be if she used all 6 gears...

An auto would probably suit her but she doesn’t like the feeling of gears “running away with themselves”

This doesn't happen with the latest DSG gearboxes - they provide lots of engine braking.

not sure why 4cl (which is unlikely, but just about possible) would be worse than a 6? yes the pulses would be bigger but the oil pressure/bearing speed would be the same? Either way, most engines (in fact all that aren't broken) have acceptable oil pressure at idle - as long as shes not forcing it significantly below that, the pressure is fine so whats the issue?

Oil pressure is fine in engines idling otherwise they'd chew themselves to bits we know that, but those big slow 750cc slugs of power (if its a 4) in an engine at full load at just above idle/low rpm are relying on that thin film of oil to stop contact between bearing surfaces. Worst case scenario.

Better case scenario is more cylinders for the same rpm, better still is any amount of cylinders but higher rpm (higher oil pressure & less dwell time of the pressure/load side of the big end bearing against the crank).

Light load - higher revs, your crank bearings, DMF and gearbox will thank you. Everyone trundling along at low revs in 6th gear is knocking the shit out of a DMF.

Scotroutes - nail on head. More than that, she also does it wearing high heels at times and that takes a heck of a lot of skill in my book (not that I’ve tried it). To pivot your foot around a fulcrum which is a few inches above the floor must be really tricky (and to swap between that and normal soled shoes without problem). This is another reason why she hasn’t got on with autos in the past because the pedal’s too big and has got used to driving with two feet (and no, I don’t get that either, but there you go).

scotroutes - Member
If she's getting better fuel economy than you and is a smoother/better driver than you despite only using half the gears then, sorry buddy, but you must be a really shit driver.

Define 'shit'.

GlennQuagmire - Member
Fair play, she sounds like a good driver. But how much better could she be if she used all 6 gears...

Define 'better'.
🙂

I'm stunned it took you a year to notice.

Define 'better'.

Less shit 😉

If there’s a “high fives” emoticon, can I send it to Glenn 😀

Tinners - maybe it's the heels. Science says you have to try that option to see if that's what is making the difference.

Failing that, it could be a seating position difference caused by your reproductive organs.

I'd try the heels first....

If there’s a “high fives” emoticon, can I send it to Glenn

Thank you! 😀

When I had my 130i (265 bhp 3 litre straight six) it would not be labouring and easily keep up with normal traffic in 6th gear from 35mph from memory, so there was no need to use all the gears.

I think I could easily get away with only using gears 2, 4 and 6. In fact I'm going to adopt this tehnique for a while to see how it goes (I'll use 1st for hill starts).

Edd, I’d be really interested to hear how you get on.
Anyone else started having Porsche adverts on the page instead of chainreaction/clothing? Spooky!!

GlennQuagmire - Member
Define 'better'.
Less shit

😀

Driving.
It's like making love to a beautiful woman.

I had a go at this on sunday morning in the wifes 1.8T.

Turns out 1st & 5th are not required but third is sorely missed.

You can certainly drive 2/4/6 but 25-30 mph is difficult. Also shifting from 2nd to 4th seems a big drop in revs.

Turbo complicates things as you struggle below 2k revs.