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

Skipping gears going up is fine, e.g. say you're using 2nd to accelerate quickly you might want to go straight into 4th once you're up to speed. Others have pointed out all the reasons why doing it all the time is weird and not the most efficient driving.

Do it all the time but not starting at 2, we were taught to do it when I did my driving training at work.

Here’s the rub. She drives more economically than me too and can average up to 5mpg average better than me. Not the best experiment because I’m not always trying to drive economically in that particular car, but still the smoith and gentle 2, 4, 6 approach mostly trumps my ham fisted 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 technique.

I think 3rd gear is my favourite. Why would you want to miss it? 5th I could live without.

Although a bit weird, I can't see an issue with it. The kind of car that has a >3l NA engine, is going to have a clutch fitted that's suited to the torque.

I drove a 6l V8 NA Corvette recently and found you could basically use 3rd from stationary, all the way up to mumble-mumble-mumble speeds, such was the torque of the engine. Didn't require any slipping of the clutch to pull away.

I know my 3l Jag always pulls away in 2nd, albeit with an auto box. I'm pretty sure it then shifts straight to 8th if just driving normally. Even the 2l variants of the car start off in 2nd for smoothness.

Here’s the rub. She drives more economically than me too and can average up to 5mpg average better than me. Not the best experiment because I’m not always trying to drive economically in that particular car, but still the smoith and gentle 2, 4, 6 approach mostly trumps my ham fisted 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 technique.

Presumably she's [i]under[/i] revving it in 4th (compared to using 3rd) rather than [i]over[/i] revving it in 2nd. Under revving will have less of an impact than over revving on fuel economy. My wife's car has a little arrow that appears on the dash telling you when to change up for max economy; I'm always surprised how early it tells you to change.

Although a bit weird

By that definition, the clutch isn’t worn (unless there’s some sort of self adjustment that corrects the bite point for wear)

Hydraulic clutches self adjust in the same way as hydraulic brakes.

Fuel economy is mostly affected by acceleration so your wife is probably getting better economy simply by accelerating less and nothing to do with gear selection.

CVT gearboxes are the best as they hold constant revs and hold the engine at the most efficient RPM all the time. A manual gearbox only approximates that so in theory if you didn't have a 6 speed gear box and had a 100 gear box then you'd be changing gear constantly to match the efficiency of a CVT. So by skipping gears you're either picking up the next gear too low in the rev range and increasing load on the engine (and therefore fuel flow), or holding the current gear for too long and too high RPM rather than changing gear at the optimal time.

All academic really so doesn't really matter in the real world as it probably has a very small negligible effect anyway. But again just highlights the case for an auto box. If people can't be bothered to change gear when they should then just let the box do it. You'll be in the best gear more of the time.

I wouldn't worry about clutch wear. On modern cars it seems a clutch is still easily good enough for 80 - 100k miles even if you abuse it. It seems to me the majority of people sit at traffic lights riding their clutches anyway which is the worst thing you can do for the clutch. Changing gear too early doesn't really slip the clutch so not really too abusive.

She seems to drive fine I reckon, if she’s not breaking the car or it’s not complaining why would you.

Most Autos start off in 2nd unless you boot it (mine does) then quickly slips into 5th before you’ve hit 30mph and it’s doing 1100rpm..

has resorted to “fine tuning it on the starter” on a few occasions

What's the car?
Second hand car buyers need to be warned. 🙂

does it cause any sort of damage or uneven wear?

Generally not, clutch wear on hill starts being the obvious exception. When I was a kid, 3 speed manual gearboxes were still common, this is basically the same thing.

She reckons it has too many gears anyway and I can’t argue with that. Fair point.

You can argue with it and it’s not a fair point!

From reading this thread I reckon it’s too late for you however 😉

If she’s labouring it at any point or if it’s a 4cylinder engine then increased/premature big end wear and potential driveline damage as the 750cc (if it’s a 4) power pulses are more spread out during a time when oil pressures are lower due to lower engine speed = more chance of the oil film between the big end bearings shearing and wear occurring.
Same with the driveline - the DMF (if fitted) is wobbling itself stupid trying to avoid the big/slow power pulses from damaging further components.
Engines are happiest when spinning faster under light loads - the taxi drivers favourite of being in top gear asap is the best way of wearing out cars.

Does she have long legs and short arms?

CVT gearboxes are the best as they hold constant revs and hold the engine at the most efficient RPM all the time

I'm not sure that's true anymore. I'm sure I've read somewhere that Audi was going to scrap their take on the CVT (Multitronic) in favour of DSG due to efficiency reasons.

I guess CVTs lose efficiency through all the belt/pully trickery whereas a DSG is good old-fashioned cog-on-cog action.

As others, I do it a lot but not all the time. I think the move to have more and more gears has led to having too small a gap most for the time.

I have 6 gears whereas a good few years back I would have had 4 which is almost the same as skipping a few gears in the 6 speed.
Having 20 gears in an automatic is fine but more and more gears in a manual can be annoying.

I rarely use third in my car (vauxhall Zafira) and sometimes set off in second. I’ll jump from second to fourth occasionally too. Will I die?

Eventually

I remember seeing a V8 trike at a biker rally, the builder had junked the gearbox completely as it was unnecessary when just propelling an engine & 3 wheels down a drag strip.
Some modern cars have way more gears than necessary, but "must have n gears" comes into the marketing strategy

I knew that bikes have gone up to 11 speed, but had no idea that some cars have 6 gears!

I'd love to know how she got where she is now.

Did she start by missing 3rd and then think well, I might as well give 5th a miss too and then, finally, let's drop 1st too and see how it goes?

3rd gear - the gateway missed ratio, don't avoid it folks.

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

I knew that bikes have gone up to 11 speed, but had no idea that some cars have 6 gears!

Every mid range family car I've owned for the last 10 years has had 6 gears!

It’s a powerful (>3L) normally aspirated performance car that she drives gently

Mrs T is Her Maj, right?

I knew that bikes have gone up to 11 speed, but had no idea that some cars have 6 gears!

Mainstream manufacturers have been doing 6 speed for 20 years - the latest (auto) gearboxes are 10 speed (porsche have a 7 speed manual but that appears to be the only one, excluding things with low-range selectors etc)

If she’s labouring it at any point or if it’s a 4cylinder engine then increased/premature big end wear and potential driveline damage as the 750cc (if it’s a 4) power pulses are more spread out during a time when oil pressures are lower due to lower engine speed = more chance of the oil film between the big end bearings shearing and wear occurring.

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?

She’s been doing it for years, apparently. Says now so ingrained that pushing stick forward into gear “doesn’t feel right”. She likes to keep a small bag in front of the gear lever, where she can get at her stuff, and says that the 2, 4, 6 routine helps with that as well because there’s more space in front of the gearstick. She has a number of similarities with her Maj (but not the tax evasion!)

PS Not a 4 cyl but very interesting comments about that. Thanks for contributions. Really interesting.

I shift from 4th to 6th every now and then after accelerating onto the motorway.

And I'm pretty sure the 1975 Buick Century we drove round BC for 9 months was a 3 speed box. 5.7l V8.

Good excuse for a picture!
[img] [/img]

3 speed manual was common on Aussie 3l cars, and 2 speed autos. coped just fine, though obviously they didn't need to support particularly high top speeds.

When accelerating up to a speed where 6th is not labouring the engine, it might be that the lower number of transients makes up for the suboptimal revs (actually the engine speed doesn't make much difference on high load as it would be whilst accelerating, as long as you're shifting up to 6th once you're up to speed).

However:
1) IT'S JUST WRONG. 4th to 6th after accelerating from time to time, fine. but this is WRONG WRONG WRONG.

2) It might cause a bit more wear to the synchros (from shifting gear with a bigger differential in the revs all the time)

3) and to the clutch (from slipping more in 2nd - it will be slipping more - but as long as it's not getting really hot the difference will be minimal)

4) It will wear the gears unevenly - yes all are engaged all the time, but 2nd, 4th and 6th are all on one shaft in an H pattern gearbox, so the load will always be going through that shaft. It might or might not make much difference in reality, bearing in mind you drive round in 6th most of the time anyway.

5) It's wrong.

I want to be nice about the fact that apparently she's driving smoothly and getting good fuel economy and stuff, but gaaah. I hate you OP for even telling me about this abomination.

Could the OP compensate by only using 1st 3rd and 5th while he's driving it?

My first car was a Volvo 340. It had very low mileage, but the clutch was knackered.
It had been my grandmother's car. I think she didn't have the strength to push the gear stick left and away from her to select first gear, so she always set off in 3rd with lots of revs.

OP - your wife doesn't have a condition like FSH-MD which might make using the gear stick properly difficult by any chance?

wwaswas - Member
Could the OP compensate by only using 1st 3rd and 5th while he's driving it?

I hate you, too.

I used to use 1st, 3rd and 5th in my 205 1.9Gti when bimbling when it was warm, mostly cos it was rather over engined for normal driving and in traffic I got a bit bored.
I'd tell my 23year old self off If I had a time machine

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...