Driving a vehicle with a manual transmission is a very involved and satisfying experience. There is no greater feeling than rowing through the gears on a wide open road, one perfectly synchronized shift after the other. This is when a driver has complete control over his or her vehicle; and with great power comes great responsibility.
Most drivers are guilty of doing some things while driving that are unknowingly wearing down your clutch and transmission that can end up cutting your joy rides short. In order to make sure that your standard transmission vehicle stays ready to carve up the asphalt at the change of a light, here are some things you need to avoid doing while behind the wheel.
1. Resting your hand on the stick shift
Don’t worry, we aren’t starting off this list with a magic trick. Yes, you still need to grab the stick shift to change gears, but you definitely don’t need to be holding it the entire drive. After you shift gears, put your hand back on the wheel until it is time to shift again. Leaving your hand on your shifter can cause excessive wear on your clutch and transmission, causing it to eventually slip, or not go into gear at all.
2. Resting your foot on the clutch pedal while driving
Cars all come with a dead pedal for a reason. That is the spot to the left of the clutch pedal meant for your foot to rest on in between shifts. Leaving your foot pressed even slightly against the pedal can put excessive wear on the clutch pedal spring.If you choose to pretend that your clutch pedal can support your foot’s weight, get ready to dish out a good chunk of change for a new clutch spring or possibly an entirely new clutch.
3. Not Rev Matching Downshifts
There are quite a few cars these days that come with automatic rev matching, where you do not need to press the gas pedal to bring RPM’s safely up to speed when downshifting to a lower gear. For the majority of manual vehicles though, a throttle blip is needed to smoothly transition to a lower gear. Without rev matching, that poor little clutch with burn out faster than cheech and chong were up in smoke, not to mention making it one hell of a rough ride.
4. Holding your car still using the Gas & Clutch Pedal
Some new drivers out there think they're hot shit rocking back and forth like a kiddy ride while waiting at a stop. I will admit though, holding the car on a hill using the gas and clutch pedal is one of the best things you can do to guarantee a new clutch replacement. When you hold your car stationary using this method, the clutch and engine pressure plate are spinning away at slightly different speeds trying to catch onto each other, burning all the friction material up 1000 RPM’s at a time. Keep it simple, keep your foot on the brake instead.
5. Lugging your engine
Driving your car pedal to the metal but accelerating slower than a Yugo? You might be lugging your engine. When you accelerate hard in too high of a gear that drops the RPM’s too low, you can cause major damage to your engine. Your engine will be working overtime to try and accelerate like normal, which causes a spike in engine temps, a disruption to the engine’s timing, and a huge decrease in efficiency (We’re talking about MPG’s people!!!!).
6. Leaving the car in gear during a stoplight
Not only can this get extremely tiring, it’s a complete waste of energy. Leaving your car in gear with the clutch pedal depressed can, you guessed it, wear down your clutch. Prolonged disengagement of the clutch means prolonged wear on the throwout bearing/ clutch spring. Let’s not forget, one hard sneeze, your foot slips off the clutch and you stall into the back of the car in front of you. Stay safe and stay off the clutch.
7. Slamming Gears
This is pretty straight forward, The harder you force things into place, the easier they wear, and the more prone they are to breaking. One “confident” gear change from 3rd to 4th can quickly become a money shift into 2nd, pushing the engine past the point of no return. If you aren’t exactly sure how detrimental a money shift is, 10 seconds of the first Youtube video you search up should give you a pretty good reason to take it easy on your transitions.
8. Coasting in Neutral
This isn’t exactly going to harm your car, or do any damage to your drivetrain directly, but it could put your life in danger! Coasting to a stop or downhill in neutral removes your ability to engine brake, which puts 100% of the stopping power on the brake pads. Not only will these wear out faster, but the brakes become your only means of slowing down your car which gives you less control over your vehicle. While your car is in neutral, you are basically sitting in a 1.5 ton wrecking ball barreling down the road. You will not be able to react as fast to any situations that arrive, and those split seconds could be valuable.
We are all human, which means we are all going to commit most of these crimes listed above, yours truly included. But if we try and resist the temptation the majority of the time, you can be sure that your manual transmission vehicle will last much longer and provide you with an extremely enriched driving experience.