Not huge numbers, but there are some – and plenty of others where it isn’t essential but makes for smoother driving. Of the top of my head I can think of a couple of hills not too far away from here where I’ll normally use one or two gears lower than it’s possible to drive them in, which avoids having to use the brakes the whole way down, and I’m talking about more than a mile of downhill in both cases. Maybe my brakes won’t be cooked if I do ride them all the way down, but if I use a bit of engine braking I know they won’t be.

As I’ve mentioned a few times, I don’t ever use engine braking in normal driving in other circumstances.

I’d agree with you on that and only describe it as engine braking when deliberately changing down a gear into one lower than necessary – but it seems some others are confusing the issue by describing lifting off in the normal gear as engine braking (strictly speaking there is an element of that, but in my diesel below 2k revs I don’t think the engine provides much braking and it is mostly other things).

bearnecessities – Member
Holy shit. You’ve got a driving licence?

To be more specific UK driving licence … UK! 😆

Not touchy. My contribution to the thread could be subtitled “there are more important things in driving than worrying about whether you leave the car in gear while waiting at a junction“. And that in the context of weekly threads on:

“Ive been caught speeding how much will it cost”
“The other driver was being a muppet” (but probably wasn’t)
“Which version of car X, 174ps or 205ps?”
“Track day car for road use”
“Crashed my car how much to fix/replace”
etc

Can’t be arsed reading 3 pages, in answer to the OP, I drive like your wife, never take it out of gear, clutch pressed down and brake pedal and/or held on clutch biting point if on hill (modulating with hand brake).

My last car (Mondeo estate) did 185000 miles on original clutch, may have done a fair bit more as I sold it on 185K. Based on that alone, I’d assume leaving it in gear doesn’t in itself wear the clutch. However, other things do cause excessive wear which she might be guilty of and might be related to that style of driving ie poor clutch control

Edukator – you mean your not on stw to talk about cars? Whats up with you?

To add to the engine braking debacle – my usual commute involves a nice decent into Buxton, which, in the right gear you can nicely coast with no stress and not break the speed limit – except for far too many other drivers who absolutely must brake for every single corner regardless of their speed, the corners sharpness, the amount of gravel/ice/mud/water on the road or lack thereof etc etc.

Drives me nuts.

Only worry about things you have control over, which doesn’t include other drivers, Dan.

Perhaps the other drivers are considering things you don’t. Visibility for example, and speed appropriate to the conditions. Or maybe they aren’t driving Gods, accept the fact and drive accordingly – with caution. I’m really really, really tolerant of people driving cautiously.

I’d agree with you on that and only describe it as engine braking when deliberately changing down a gear into one lower than necessary – but it seems some others are confusing the issue by describing lifting off in the normal gear as engine braking (strictly speaking there is an element of that, but in my diesel below 2k revs I don’t think the engine provides much braking and it is mostly other things).

It’s no different to pushing the brake pedal a little bit, or pushing it a lot. You brake a little, or you brake a lot. No different with the engine, you chose the gear based on the speed you want to go, whether you’re speeding up or slowing down.

I dunno. I feel it’s quite important. Essential even for winter driving in snow and ice. It surprise me that some people never do it.

Not read much of this thread, but just to add;

Used to have a works van with rubbish brakes (LDV), particularly when loaded. Couldn’t reliably hold itself at some downhill facing traffic lights in town, so used to scare the crap out of following cars as we held it on the clutch in reverse.
Also remember a down shift to second on a back lane, the brakes showed no sign of doing their job in time, so dropped to second to lock the axle and slow it into the corner before exiting in third.

Weren’t fussed about the vans longevity as it wasn’t ours, it was horrible piece of junk, blew it up twice whilst I was there in an effort to get the boss to replace it, most useful thing was the box body on the back of it.

On the fuel cutting off when you let off the throttle, it can be tested, well it can on mine which might not be running entirely to design. If you drop straight off the throttle with a lot of revs it will slow down quickly, then realise it needs some fuel and then accelerate a little.

Driving cautiously is fine. Driving timidly, like you’re not sure what the controls of your car do, isn’t.

So damning of others but you just can’t see that it’s not the timid/cautious drivers that kill/injure people it’s the ones that follow someone past a SLOW sign, around a blind bend, then through a poor visibility junction and judging that the caution being shown equates to “Driving timidly, like you’re not sure what the controls of your car do” overtake despite the fact the leading cars are accelerating back up to the speed limit.

Just accept that other drivers drive the way they do and concentrate on your own driving. Make it cautious, careful legal and courteous so that if anything ever goes wrong you will have nothing got reproach yourself.

This is a different thread edukator. Do try to keep track.

And no, there is a huge difference between caution ie not taking risks, and being inept, such as the morons who have to brake when a truck passes in the opposite direction or are incapable of driving within the speed limit, except once it’s not there anymore ie the 40 in a 30, 40 in a 50 brigade.

For someone who’s admitted to speeding today that’s a bit rich. You are still slagging off other drivers but incapable of questioning your own attitude and behaviour, Dan.

Let he who has no sin throw the first stone (which is why I’ve been polite and persuasive rather call you names)

People in glass houses would be better not to throw stones at all.

Press ESP – Off
Press Sport Mode – On
Foot on Park Brake – On
Engage DS (Sport Drive) – done
Press accelerator to over 3000rpm – done
Release foot off Park Brake – whooosh…….

Thats what it says in my Manual.

Only done that once, ever in my Toy. Frankly it frightened me.

I prefer a simpler method, with no modern interference!

Hold engine at 6000rpm

Sidestep clutch 😆

https://youtu.be/Di1HuAQwTj4

I used to be very pro engine braking until I had a fairly fast car with a performance clutch, the gearbox on overrun attempts to rotate and in the case of my car it ripped the torque tube (sort of a long bell housing). lesson learned.

Sure, and if you want to slow down a little you ease off the accelerator. If you want to slow down a bit more you use the pedal just to the left of it rather than messing around with other controls.

I dunno. I feel it’s quite important. Essential even for winter driving in snow and ice. It surprise me that some people never do it.

In normal driving conditions, there’s absolutely no benefit to using anything other than your brakes to slow down. Sure in slippery conditions you might use engine braking to control your speed, but still not to slow down.

But given those thoughts I’m going to come back to your earlier post I was going to leave alone:

As above, it saves no more fuel to engine brake – if as it appears you do mean to change down the gears. The engine will be using no fuel either way.

Plus selecting the right gears gives you better control over the car.

Using the controls designed to slow you down gives you better control of the car. If the engine isn’t bogging down then you’re in the right gear, and if you’re braking to a stop then you it makes no difference what gear you’re in, if you’re not then making a single gear change to the appropriate gear for pulling away again is more efficient and leaves your hands on the wheel and you in better control over the car.

Must admit I’m crap with the clutch. Handbrake is useless in my car, so I sit on the clutch all the time.

Holding the car on the biting point? 😯

There’s a big difference between going down through the gears to decelerate (outdated procedure which lessens driver control) and shifting into a lower gear going down a steep hill to control speed. The latter is an important technique because lengthy continuous application of the brakes can get them so hot you suffer brake fade (as you would if you took most road cars on a track day).

The biggest two downsides of going down through the gears and using engine braking to slow down are that all the braking forces are only coming from the driven wheels (particularly bad in a rear wheel drive car) and the braking effect peaks just as you’ve released the clutch going into a lower gear. I remember experiencing the risk of that when my mum was driving on an icy morning, downshifted before a T-junction and the driven wheels locked and we skidded along the road out of control… With the footbrake twice the tyres would have been sharing the grip and the ABS would have kicked in to help bring us to a more controlled stop, plus she could have intuitively lifted off the brake pedal.

We talked about the problems with engine braking combined with ABS years ago, Chiefgroove guru. I was advocating “clutch down and steer” and “brake hard clutch down with ABS” in icy conditions. Surfmatt was on the thread too! At the time I wrote:

ABS has its limits, it can manage the force being applied to the brakes but does not manage engine braking forces. When you go from gritted roads to sheet ice, engine braking alone can slow the road wheels faster than the ABS would normally allow. I’ve experimented and found the following sequence if you engine brake and brake but don’t declutch on ice: You feel the ABS working initially then nothing, the engine revs drop and it starts to hunt as if it’s fighting the brakes, then it stalls and you glide on with the driving wheels locked until you declutch. Try it on an empty car park next winter.