Since its topic de jour…

I never knew until seeing this at Morrisons this afternoon, but if you stall on approach to your chosen parking space, there is no need to restart your engine. Save time by leaving the car in gear and repeatedly use the starter motor to edge yourself in 6 inches at a time.

I often drive to work using just the starer motor – saves loads on fuel….

🙂

Smurf Matt to the forum, please!

Or Hora/Molgrips is he’s not available.

!!
be unfortunate if you mis-timed it and engine caught just as you edged up to next car, eh?

If you park diagonally across two spaces you get loads more room to get the shopping in and out

I often drive to work using just the starer motor – saves loads on fuel….

You must go through loads of batteries though.

If you drive on the M62, gratuitously use lanes 1 & 2 to pass nuisance traffic.

After this mornings little oopsie, i can safely say, “watch out, even though you may have lived in your house for over 10 years, don’t take driving onto your drive for granted, and be careful you don’t drive straight into next doors house wall when not quite paying attention”

DOH!

My ex’s house shared a driveway with their neighbour. This is America, and each driveway was wide enough for two of their huge cars so four cars’ width was quite a lot. Consequently, the neighbour would reverse from the far right of the driveway with full lock so she could turn around and drive out of the drive.

One day my ex had returned from work for some reason and parked on the far left, the neighbour just reversed smack into her car. Her response was ‘No, I wasn’t looking behind me – there’s never normally a car there!’

Fed up of having to make do kerbing one alloy wheel at a time, my missus can teach you to kerb all 4 wheels in a single manouver*.

*drive straight at a trafic island and richochet off to the pavement to get the other two.

!!
be unfortunate if you mis-timed it and engine caught just as you edged up to next car, eh?

There’s a towbar shaped dent in my garage door where I tried to start the car in reverse 🙁

When I first passed my test, I would often approach the car on the passenger side as a result of a 30 year habit. It was mildly amusing until I was filling up at a very busy petrol station in the West End of Glasgow. I instinctively got into the passenger side after paying, feeling a bit rushed due to the queues of waiting cars.

Realising my error I tried to shuffle across into the drivers seat and failed, so pretended I was looking for something in my glove compartment instead.

Once I felt a sufficient amount of time had passed for my charade to be convincing, I got out, walked round the car in full view of a dozen or more waiting cars and got in the correct side 😳

I Cycle to work down chiswick highstreet every day a few weeks ago I was nearly knocked over as Im overtaken by someone as they pull into the underground carpark of……………….

the Institute of Advanced Motorists

Advanced driver

If your clutch goes you can still drive your car (just) by starting off using the starter motor and then just doing clutchless gear changes.

No good in heavy traffic though……………

natrix – I remember when mine went I was doing quite well until in stop/start traffic on the M25. Gave up at that point and called the AA.

I saw someone yesterday talking on a hands free phone, holding a cup of coffee in one hand with one finger (from the same hand) looped around the steering wheel while gesticulating her conversation with her free hand, whilst navigating a roundabout.

Overtake someone just before your desired slip road off the motorway, cutting into the gap between them and the car in front even though there is a mile of space behind them and you’re going the same damn speed a second later and be REALLY BLOODY SURPRISED when Ithey stick right up your arse all the way up the slip road and round the roundabout off it you stupid moron

Clutch cable on our car snapped end of last year. Called RAC but truck didn’t carry spares, and given it was Sunday, no point in a tow to a locked garage. Called garage Monday morning, nice owner chap came round after evening rush hour (in Elgin, so that’s 5.00pm – 5.18pm).

Problem was, tow hook had been ripped off after a rather disastrous ‘puffer, so he hopped in car and set off, in 2nd to start & go, clutchless gear changes, and simply turned engine off at junctions. wouldn’t have the balls to do that these days..

How do you do clutchless changes? And doesn’t it result in some epic grinding of gears?

nicko, as long as you roughly match engine revs to in gear speed then it’ll go into gear without too many grinding noises. I used to do this to ease the boredom driving a landrover around an airfield all day.

Jeff

I drove from Cannock to Cambridge with only a partially working clutch, the pedal would depress and then stay depressed, I had to lift it back up with my toe under so I could re-engage it. When it first happened it was a bit of a shock as I couldn’t disengage the engine….

Changing up clutchless – pretty much noise free if you time it / get the revs right. Changing down, not so much…

changing down just requires higher revs in neutral before selecting the lower gear. it’s possible to do it without grinding.

Cluthless gear changes… Oh you mean racing gear changes! 😆

Many moons ago I drove my Opal Manta from the New Forest to Bristol with a non releasing clutch, it was quiet wearing on my nerves timing junctions & lights but as I had no recovery cover in those days had little option.
Don’t think I would like to try it these days as traffic is slightly worse than 25 years ago?

I drive my Passat clutchless all the time to save my left leg. It’s easier from third gear onwards. All you’ve got to do is apply gentle pressure to the gear lever and ease off the throttle until there’s no torque in the drivetrain and the lever slips into neutral. Then move it into the next gear position and hold it gently against the gate while matching the revs and it will slip in. Across the gate obliquely can grate occasionally but straight line changes are easy, both up and down. It takes practice but is fun to learn and can become almost as smooth as a gearchange with clutch.

The drivers around my way are so advanced that they can drive along dark country lanes with only one working sidelight!

The number of cars with malfunctioning headlights is really quite scary but maybe those drivers just ate more carrots than me when they were young…

Keva – Member

changing down just requires higher revs in neutral before selecting the lower gear. it’s possible to do it without grinding.

That depends on the car tbh, easy enough in my current one but I never got it to work with my Focus (and tried a lot, after the clutch failed! Delivering it to its new owner meant starting off in third, and trying not to stop… )

Through rallying I have ended up finishing stages with car in various states of mechanical and/or cosmetic “distress” including (but not restricted to);

co-drivers biro jamming the throttles 3/4 open (that was an “interesting ride” on the key, particularly as my co-driver was in charge – it appeared he had bigger balls than me 😯 )

3rd gear only

Front NS wheel pointing permenantly to left after I ditch hooked the front end into a very unforgiving rock = bust track rod

Rear Beam axle (stored) in the boot – literally dragged FWD car (Grp A Nova Sport) out of stage on it’s underbody armour after smacking a very big rock broadside on the last corner of the last stage and ripping the axle completely off – needless to say DNF rally after two traffic Guardai had a sense of humour failure over the vehicle not being in conplete compliance with the irish construction and build regs (surprising)

EVERY panel bent and not one bit of glazing remaining (only managed that once despite my best efforts)

clutch operated by towrope and co-driver!

3 cylinders as cylinder #4 piston had a hole punched in it after an over rev whoopsie with its inlet valve (finished event by reasoning the engine was fked anyway, had enough service time to whip head & sump of, remove remnants of piston & rod, reassemble and block the inlet port of carb)

Once had to drive through rush hour traffic in Newcastle with only 3rd gear (never again!)

Pfft. Changing gears? Try having a car with a gearstick that falls off if you pull to hard.

And it’s a great security measure when someone steals your car from outside the cinema (found 200 yards down the road, engine still running, gearstick on back seat) 🙂

Drive a disco in middle lane of 3 lane roundabout, edging into the inside lane whilst indicating left. When tooted by other drivers just put your brakes on and off semi-randomly. That way you keep all of your option open, apparently….

Fella driving down the A1 this morning in a silver foggy coloured estate at dawn in heavy fog with no foglights on, no headlights on, no sidelights on, and pushing me along the fast lane as he took offence to the gap I had left to all the other cars in front of me.

Cue wild undertake and a look of utter surprise when the fat geordie (me) now behind him gesticulates wildly to pull over so I could rip his ******* face off whilst explaining rudely that when dark and foggy driving like a helmet in a totally unlit car is not advisable.

Think I need anger management.

Save time by leaving the car in gear and repeatedly use the starter motor to edge yourself in 6 inches at a time.

Actually I had a hire car in france which wouldn’t start (possibly immobiliser fault). It was in a multistory car park that was too low for the breakdown truck. The recovery driver drove it probably 200-300m on just the starter motor to get it out. This despite the fact there were more than enough adults to push it out.

Once had to drive from Essex to Cheshire with a front brake disk broken from the centre to the edge. RAC ‘customer service’ were convinced my membership hadn’t been paid, (it had) and wouldn’t come and pick me up.

Managed it by leaving massive distances to the car in front, and using engine braking and gear changing. I only (gently) touched the pedal twice in about 200 miles.

tthew – I did this one evening in old Golf GTI, left Edinburgh Friday evening, think, oh, brakes a bit spongy, by the time I’d left town the brakes were, ah, u/s.. A brake pipe had corroded, just on the calliper..

Continued on up to my folks’ house in Elgin, about 180 miles away up M9 & A9, A95 & A941 – as above, judicious engine braking and (possibly) handbrake got me there, luckily light traffic..

RAC next day (Saturday) took me to local garage who tied off one half of the system, re-bled the remaining half to get me down the road, with warning it’d be new brakes time. Took to local garage (Tomsons FWIW) who said “nonsense, we can fix that” and redrilled a new hole in calliper, job done, worked fine for as long as I had the car after that..

If you wish to completely remove the jockey wheel from your trailer (that you built yourself recently) quickly and easily, simply follow the steps below:

1. Allow mother to drive car and trailer up the (steep) drive.

2. Watch your father remind your mother that due to the weight of the large full trailer, she will need to keep the revs relatively high.

3. Stand back and watch as your mother guns the whole lot up the drive at about 50 mph, bouncing the trailer about 4 ft into the air after smashing the jockey wheel off onto the (lowered) kerb.

4. Listen in admiration tho your father’s extremely impressive vocabulary.

🙂

Re:clutch failures…

This happened to me many years ago when I was driving my Dad’s Mk1 Golf.

The grommet protecting the clutch cable (as it passed thru the bulkhead between the engine and passenger compartments) had failed and the cable wore thru and snapped whilst I was in deepest mid Wales.
I attached a piece of cord to the end of the cable connected to the clutch, fed it thru the bulkhead and had my passenger pull on the cord when I wanted to change gear.
This was very tiring for their right arm as we had over a 100 miles of Welsh B roads to negotiate back to Liverpool and my Dad’s car had a grand total of about 50bhp so many many gear changes where necessary to get up those rolling Welsh roads 😯

A few lessons from colleagues at work:

Don’t let a trailer jockey wheel drop onto the road…impressive sparks!
Ensure nothing can fall onto the engine stop/panic button in the rear of a lorry (for the PTO) especially on a hill.
Don’t leave the support legs down on a trailer, they are very effective at scooping up cables across the road and towing the attached temporary traffic lights behind you 🙂
Never trust anyone who says you can fit under a low bridge.

Isn’t advanced driving just somewhere early 😉