"Why ever put the manual in neutral? Don't have enough leg strength to keep the clutch down? Unless perhaps you start at the top of a hill with the engine off. "
I use neutral all the time. When coming off of a 65 MPH freeway onto a long curved exit ramp ending in a 5 way stop-light, you can't see much ahead of time if there are any, or many cars lined up at the light, or if the light is Green or Red or just turning Yellow!
When hitting such an exit ramp, I push in the clutch, and coast or brake around the bend at appropriate speed. I move the shifter to neutral because you don't know until you " 'round the bend" if you are going to have to speed up or slow down.
Am I gonna need 1st or 3rd or 4th?
It's easier to get to any of the above from neutral.
Not being a smart-ass, but just want to know if there is any good reason this is a "bad" practice?
You are forgoing engine braking, screwing with your fuel economy and wearing your brakes more than necessary.
At any given moment, you are at X rpm. From X rpm, it might make sense to switch into lower gear or higher gear, but not both.
Doing the gear change in two steps, you are spending more attention on it than you really need to. That attention comes out of your other activity, like observing what goes on around you.
Your hand spends more time on the gearstick instead of the wheel. In any emergency situation, the control from having two hands on the wheel is superior. Even if it's a ramp with no intersecting traffic, a tire can always blow up, there could be an oil slick, or whatever.
Likewise, sometimes in an emergency you need to use throttle for control or to get out of the way of something. If you do it at all, it is going to be a reflexive action. There's no time to think. Realistically, you'll be distracted enough that you won't switch gears on instinct, so if you are on neutral to start with, there's a high likelihood you'll just rev the engine and have no power.
Pro drivers do as little as possible. Hands on the wheel, fast and fluid gear change, hands back on the wheel. Simple.
Not that I'm a torque converter whore or anything, but for most people, what's the damned point of owning a car manual/standard transmission? Hell, even drivers in motorsports like F1 don't have to deal with clutches anymore. And the Pi dashes on most of those cars tell you precisely when to shift as well.
Quite honestly, for me it came down to cost/maintenance, a majority of standard manual cars are cheaper than their automatic counterparts. This isn't always the case, but it's a general rule. Working at a Mazda/VW dealership, all the higher end and more expensive packages tend to be automatic, with the manual version saved for the baseline model. This may change as parts for a manual transmission get harder to find and as equipment for an automatic transmission get cheaper, but as it stands, manuals are usually(a universal to particular modifier, so if I'm to be corrected on this, use statistics and not an exception.) cheaper.
Also, a manual transmission is (for me) easier and cheaper to work on/repair. Being on a lower budget, therefore owning lower end cars, when an automatic transmission in a car goes, the replacement of the transmission cost usually rivals that of the car. However on a manual, a good deal of the repairs I'm able to do myself, and what I can't do, I can usually order all the parts I need myself and simply pay for labor.
Comments
"Why ever put the manual in neutral? Don't have enough leg strength to keep the clutch down? Unless perhaps you start at the top of a hill with the engine off.
I use neutral all the time. When coming off of a 65 MPH freeway onto a long curved exit ramp ending in a 5 way stop-light, you can't see much ahead of time if there are any, or many cars lined up at the light, or if the light is Green or Red or just turning Yellow!
When hitting such an exit ramp, I push in the clutch, and coast or brake around the bend at appropriate speed. I move the shifter to neutral because you don't know until you " 'round the bend" if you are going to have to speed up or slow down.
Am I gonna need 1st or 3rd or 4th?
It's easier to get to any of the above from neutral.
Not being a smart-ass, but just want to know if there is any good reason this is a "bad" practice?
You are forgoing engine braking, screwing with your fuel economy and wearing your brakes more than necessary.
At any given moment, you are at X rpm. From X rpm, it might make sense to switch into lower gear or higher gear, but not both.
Doing the gear change in two steps, you are spending more attention on it than you really need to. That attention comes out of your other activity, like observing what goes on around you.
Your hand spends more time on the gearstick instead of the wheel. In any emergency situation, the control from having two hands on the wheel is superior. Even if it's a ramp with no intersecting traffic, a tire can always blow up, there could be an oil slick, or whatever.
Likewise, sometimes in an emergency you need to use throttle for control or to get out of the way of something. If you do it at all, it is going to be a reflexive action. There's no time to think. Realistically, you'll be distracted enough that you won't switch gears on instinct, so if you are on neutral to start with, there's a high likelihood you'll just rev the engine and have no power.
Pro drivers do as little as possible. Hands on the wheel, fast and fluid gear change, hands back on the wheel. Simple.
See Ross Bentley, Bob Bondurant, Curt Rich, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eugene
Not that I'm a torque converter whore or anything, but for most people, what's the damned point of owning a car manual/standard transmission? Hell, even drivers in motorsports like F1 don't have to deal with clutches anymore. And the Pi dashes on most of those cars tell you precisely when to shift as well.
Quite honestly, for me it came down to cost/maintenance, a majority of standard manual cars are cheaper than their automatic counterparts. This isn't always the case, but it's a general rule. Working at a Mazda/VW dealership, all the higher end and more expensive packages tend to be automatic, with the manual version saved for the baseline model. This may change as parts for a manual transmission get harder to find and as equipment for an automatic transmission get cheaper, but as it stands, manuals are usually(a universal to particular modifier, so if I'm to be corrected on this, use statistics and not an exception.) cheaper.
Also, a manual transmission is (for me) easier and cheaper to work on/repair. Being on a lower budget, therefore owning lower end cars, when an automatic transmission in a car goes, the replacement of the transmission cost usually rivals that of the car. However on a manual, a good deal of the repairs I'm able to do myself, and what I can't do, I can usually order all the parts I need myself and simply pay for labor.