Heel and toe down-shifting

I can do it, it does get trickier with newer cars/more sensitive brakes. Octavia currently has very sensitive brakes, quite tricky/takes a bit of getting used to. Still, it has a tiny engine and I have to keep the turbo spinning somehow!

Learnt to do it really when I had an old Golf that didn’t idle right when it was cold, I do find I have to know the car before I can do it well.

Oh and it’s worth practising just blipping the downshifts to match the revs first, otherwise you’re trying to learn two things at once.

The other good game is changing gear without the clutch.
Off the throttle and slips out of gear easy, match the revs and will go into next gear without the use of the clutch.
Hire cars are best to practise on.
Really good game in hire car is the full throttle clutchless shift from 1st to 2nd and 3rd to 4th.

The heel and toe equivalent on a motorbike is much harder I find, particularly swift smooth ones

Clutchless changes are a piece of cake though!

I left foot brake in my auto all the while, found it very easy to get to grips with. I’m not even sure if I can brake with my right foot anymore as I can’t remember the last time I tried it!

I’d never heard of this safety feature mentioned on the previous page where if the brake and throttle are pressed simultaneously the power is cut. Just tried it in my 09 bmw and it does have this safety feature. Doesn’t stop H-T’ing as the clutch is down but interesting to learn something new about the car nonetheless.

Clutchless changes are pointless unless you’re left-foot braking and then there’s no matching of revs. Up changes are normal with the clutch and most down changes too. The clutchless changes are only used when the car is being balanced engine against brakes and releasing the brakes would result in the car running wide, down changes are then with the accelerator on the floor and moving the gear lever as fast as possible. A slight lift might be needed with some engines but in most FWD rally cars I drove fourth to third could be done foot on the floor and ram the lever through. Muffing the change left the car freewheeling whilst sideways, not good, so it was important to be decisive and have a method that worked every time even if mechanically brutal.

Heel and toe is unnecessary and wastes fuel in normal driving in modern cars. Unless you double-declutch too it won’t ease the load on the synchro cones so mechanical sympathy doesn’t come in to it. Heel and toe in a modern car just serves to spin the engine until you drop the clutch. Once a habit it’s hard to unlearn, I’m currently trying as my son is learning to drive and has to use the handbrake rather than heel and toe.