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  • Hello everyone and welcome

  • In this video we'll be talking about five bad habits

  • that you may fall into driving a manual transmission vehicle.

  • And the reason I'm making this video is

  • because you know behind the scenes

  • there's a lot of things happening with a manual transmission

  • that you may not be thinking about

  • if you don't fully understand how they work.

  • So we're gonna get into these bad habits and

  • talk about why exactly you may not want to do them.

  • So the first one is you shouldn't rest your hand on the gear shift in a manual transmission vehicle

  • you shouldn't use it as a hand rest instead whenever you need to shift gear, you know do the gear shift

  • and then take your hand of put it back on the wheel, do the gear shift take your hand off put back on the wheel

  • if you need to down shift take your hand off put it back on the wheel

  • you shouldn't be resting your hand on the gear shift

  • so why shouldn't you rest your hand on the gear shift? well you have too understand whats happening within the transmission

  • so when you are shifting a gear you have a selector fork and you are pushing that selector fork

  • up against a rotating collar and you press that collar into the gear that you wanna choose

  • So what you have happening is you have static object that just moves back and forth rubbing up against this rotating component thats used to select the gear

  • So you're gonna have a little bit of wear on that selector fork when you do shift gears. But it's not much because it's a very short duration where you pressing up against it

  • now if you're leaving your hand on the gear shift while it's in gear

  • what's happening is you could be applying pressure on that selector fork

  • up against that collar so you've got a rotating component pressing up against

  • that

  • selector fork and you can wear out that selector fork and so you don't want

  • to be doing that. Now if you just put a little bit of a pressure on it if you're

  • not really touching it much if you're just kind of holding in place because

  • you're going to you know select another gear next

  • it's not a huge deal but you should know that putting pressure on it can cause

  • premature wear of those gear for it's because you're pressing up against the

  • rotating component and you can even find in owner's manuals it will tell you

  • not to use the gear shift as a hand rest. now another good reason not to leave

  • your hand on the gear shift is that it's also just a good idea to have both hands

  • on the wheel for maximum control especially in any sort of competitive

  • environment. So moving on to number two

  • one bad habit is to leave it in gear while you're sitting at a stoplight so

  • if you come up to a stoplight the best idea instead of just leaving it in gear

  • take it out of here put it in neutral and let your foot off the clutch

  • so why should you do this well here is the pressure plate and this is the

  • diaphragm spring and so this is what's going to be engaging and disengaging

  • your clutch and so within your transmission this is the throw out

  • bearing and so when you push in that clutch pedal

  • what you're doing is you're pushing the throw out bearing up against this

  • diaphragm spring and you're relieving pressure so that it doesn't clamp down

  • on that clutch disc

  • so when you're sitting at a stoplight and you put it in gear

  • what you're doing is you're pressing this up against it and you can wear out

  • these throw out bearing so it's unnecessary wear to just have it sitting

  • there so you can just put it in neutral

  • let out the clutch and then you know it can sit there and it's not wearing up

  • against it

  • now the other thing is when you do have your clutch engaged with it in neutral

  • you're not gonna have your clutch spinning in there so you know if you did

  • start to have some clearance issues with your clutch

  • you could have some premature we're just sitting there with an in gear

  • rather than engaging it now people will argue hey you know you want to have it

  • in gear just in case you need to get up and go or whatever but you know there's

  • plenty of scenarios where there's going to be a car in front of you a car behind

  • things like that there's no need to just leave it in gear and it doesn't really

  • take any time to put it into gear it's a very quick thing to do

  • and the other thing people say it's like hey you know you might get rear-ended

  • you want to have it in gear so that you know if your foot comes off the clutch

  • your vehicle stops it's like well you should have your foot on the brake so if

  • you are going to get rounded your foots are going to be on the break I've had

  • this happen to me twice

  • unfortunately in my Subaru STi where I've been stopped with my foot on the

  • brake cards in neutral and I've been hit from behind and it's not a big deal you

  • know you keep your foot on the brake your kind of natural reaction in an

  • emergency situation like that is a tendency to break because you don't want

  • to move you're not trying to move

  • so your thought is I need to stop moving so you hit the brake when your foots

  • already on it you know obviously you're just going to stay stopped but anyways

  • the big . there with leaving it in neutral when you come to a stop light is

  • to prevent premature wear of this throw out bearing which is going to be

  • pressing up against that diaphragm spring

  • moving on to number three you should never use the clutch to hold yourself on

  • a hill and this may seem pretty obvious but plenty of people still do it where

  • you basically feather the throttle and the clutch pedal to get that sweet spot

  • where your vehicle doesn't

  • roll down the hill but what you're doing is you're burning up the friction

  • material on your clutch disc so your clutch is spinning at one speed and your

  • engines is the pressure plate here which sandwiches this clutch disc between the

  • flywheel

  • this is going to be rotating at another speed based on your throttle

  • so you're rotating this at one speed in order to bring this up to speed and in

  • doing so you're just gonna be wearing out this friction material because this

  • is rubbing up against the pressure plate and flywheel and so you're going to be

  • wearing out your clutch and there's just absolutely no reason to do that

  • so instead what you should be doing is just holding the brake when you're on

  • the hill that seems pretty obvious but the next question is okay well how do I

  • accelerate

  • well there's two things that you can do actually probably three things a lot of

  • modern cars now come with break hold and so when you're on a hill and you have

  • the clutch pressed in when you let your foot off the brake

  • they'll tend to hold you now plenty of vehicles do not for example I don't

  • believe this nissan 370z has it

  • and so in that case if it's not a big hill you know you can just kind of wait

  • and then get on to the throttle fairly quickly bring out your clutch a little

  • bit so you know you're ready to do that and have a transition you may roll a

  • little bit back but not much where it matters now the third scenario let's say

  • you're on a pretty steep hill and you don't want to roll back because there's

  • a car right behind you

  • well what you're going to do is pull the brake you've got your clutch pedal and

  • your foot on the brake

  • you can now let your foot off of the break assuming your brakes going to hold

  • you

  • and so then what you want to do you can put it in gear now you're going to start

  • to ease off of the clutch where it starts to bite and you'll feel this

  • because the car is going to start to talk a little bit and then you're going

  • to let off the brake and then you're off now it's a good idea to practice this on

  • flat ground so you get the hang of it before you're actually on a hill and you

  • need to actually do it for real

  • so you know you can just find an empty parking lot something like that pull the

  • ebrake start to let the clutch out

  • you can feel it start to grab let me break down and you accelerate you don't

  • roll back at all

  • number four

  • didn't apply a lot of throttle when you're not at a very high engine rpm

  • so for example if you're in sixth year and I'm going 40 miles per hour right

  • now it's not a good idea to floor it because what you're doing is you're

  • lugging the engine it's not a huge gearing disadvantage and you're telling

  • it to accelerate as hard as it can and so you're kind of conflicting there

  • so rather than you know flooring in 6th gear it's a much smarter idea don't be

  • lazy

  • just down shift if you need more than 50 or you know go down the second gear if

  • you need you can skip gear so long as you rub match i have a separate video

  • explaining that but it is important that you know if you need to accelerate don't

  • be lazy just down shift because you're going to lug the engine

  • if you have it in you know 60 or 40 miles per hour in the engine RPMs are

  • really low and you're telling it to work really hard but it's that such a huge

  • gearing disadvantage that it doesn't work out it can cause problems and

  • finally number five

  • one thing you don't want to do is while you're driving rest your foot let's see

  • here on the highway rest your foot on the clutch pedal and that also seems

  • pretty obvious but it's also something that some people commonly do and so

  • there are several reasons why don't want to do this first of all resting your

  • foot on that clutch pedal means your clutch may not be fully engaged in so

  • you can have a little bit of slip with their clutch disc

  • you're not putting down full power and you can be wearing out your clutch

  • another reason there is you can be wearing out your throw out bearing once

  • again because you're pressing that throw out bearing against the diaphragm spring

  • as i showed earlier in the video

  • so those are five habits that may be fairly common for some people if you

  • don't fully understand how manual transmission works

  • hopefully that cleared up the confusion and hopefully you know you can learn

  • from that if you are applying any of these bad driving techniques you know

  • from time to time i'll always find myself resting my hand on the gearshift

  • lever it's not the end of the world you know I'm not applying a ton of pressure

  • on and wearing out that fort but there are some little things like that

  • what you may not always be thinking about which you you know but should put

  • a little bit of thought into while driving a manual transmission vehicle as

  • you could wear it out a little bit sooner

  • so thank you guys for watching and if you have any questions or comments feel

  • free to leave those below

  • I guess it really need to make the noises i mean it's got a great sounding engine.

Hello everyone and welcome

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