The 11 most common mistakes when changing gears

Correct these errors to reduce wear on your clutch and prevent transmission-related breakdowns.

Vehicles with Manual gearbox They can save you a lot of money over the years compared to another one with automatic transmission. Manual transmissions are very simple, and have a very low maintenance. However, how long the box or clutch lasts will depend directly on the good or bad driving habits of the person who drives it.

Having to replace a clutch is not a drama, even if it is an expensive repair. It is a wear element that you will have to change sooner or later. It is not the reason you would take the car to the scrap yard. On the other hand, a serious transmission failure Yes, it can be a reason why you have to say goodbye to your car prematurely.

If you have a manual car, stay and read this article, because we are going to show you the Most common mistakes that are normally made when changing gears. Some of them directly damage the clutch, while others put the elements of the transmission itself in trouble. Once you recognize them, you can correct them to eliminate them from your driving.

Over-pressing the clutch (or using it as a footrest)

Most premature clutch failures come from improper use of the pedal.

Constantly depressing the clutch pedal is usually related to the fear of driving. Going for the left pedal is a symptom of not being in tune with the vehicle. We step on it to regain control, or for fear of leaking.

New drivers tend to make this mistake a lot. In fact, a driver’s first manual car is usually the one that will see its clutch deteriorate the fastest. However, this can also appear in older people who lose the habit of driving and begin to introduce these little quirks.

If you press the clutch during full acceleration, or drop your left foot on the pedal, the clutch will wear out in record time. In addition, you will use much more fuel and make driving more unpleasant and noisy.

Let the clutch slip

If the clutch slips excessively, it can burn Samurai Expedition

It is related to the previous point, but it has its nuances. This phenomenon occurs when The clutch pedal does not completely release when changing gears.. Instead of releasing the pedal decisively to allow the clutch to engage properly, there are users who release it slowly and smoothly.

The result of this is also harmful to the mechanism. The clutch disc will slip, and the car will not move at the corresponding speed even though its revolutions increase, since there is no transfer of power to the wheels because the clutch is still depressed. In addition to making a lot of noise from the engine, there may also be a burning smell. In the worst case, the clutch disc can catch fire due to excess friction.

Do not press the clutch all the way

Not so much, not so little. When you press the clutch, what you are really doing is moving the piston of a hydraulic pump that sends pressure to another pump to move the transmission mechanism.

If you don’t push the pedal all the way to the floor, you will be forcing the mechanism. So that you can visualize it, imagine that every day you locked the lock of your house without having closed the door completely. The latch will come into place, but you will damage the groove, the case, and the lock itself. Well, the clutch in your car has a similar mechanism. Get used to pushing the pedal all the way to the floor. If you don’t get there well, move your seat closer.

Release your foot from the clutch slowly on uphill climbs

In ascending driving movements, we must remove our foot fairly quickly from the clutch

When we increase speed, the ideal is to make a fast change. We engage the clutch, enter the next gear and release our foot while compensating with the accelerator. It is a process that should last one or two seconds. You don’t have to let go of it suddenly, nor do you have to spend 10 seconds compensating for the movement.

Release the clutch foot abruptly when downshifting

This failure is much more common and is a good recipe for break the clutch. When we downshift, we can take advantage of the engine braking to decelerate more smoothly and without using up the brakes. In fact, this technique is one of the best that cars with a manual transmission can offer us.

The problem is that not everyone does reductions well. When we enter a lower gear, we cannot release the clutch suddenly, as it will be the mechanism will receive a very strong impact when engaging. This is noticeable by the noise, as well as by the jerk that we will notice from inside the cabin. In diesel vehicles, which tend to retain a lot due to the engine’s own compression, not doing the engine braking properly can also be very unpleasant for passengers, especially for those who tend to get dizzy on long trips.

How is it done then? We press the clutch, put a lower gear and go releasing the clutch foot gently so that the synchronizers in the box can do their job. We can easily help ourselves by pressing the brake a little with our right foot and repeat the process with as many gears as necessary.

Making shortcuts in lever travel

By doing the correct route, you will damage the box components less.

By this we are not referring to jumping gears, that is, to making an increase from third to fifth or a reduction from fourth to second – which can be done perfectly as long as the incoming gear falls into a correct rpm regime. What we are referring to is do not follow the drawing movement of the lever itself.

The change from first to second is normally a straight line downwards. However, from second to third, you have to make one more move. The lever is designed to shift you up that gear. in the form of a ladder. Many people make an oblique movement, causing the transmission gears and linkages to suffer in the process. Although this bad habit is less harmful than others that we are going to talk about in this article, it can cause the gearbox to end up damaged.

Neutral with clutch depressed

When you stop a manual car at a traffic light, the ideal is put neutral. There are many reasons why you should do this, but the most important is that it is proven to be the way you will suffer fewer injuries if you are caught from behind.

Well, a fairly widespread failure with this technique is that some drivers put it in neutral, but leave the clutch depressed. The ideal is remove footbecause that minute that we have the light on red, we will be unnecessarily wearing out the clutch.

Friction point on slopes

Secret trick: repairing the handbrake is cheaper than changing the clutch

If you are a driving school teacher and you are reading this point on the list, we apologize in advance. When we learn to drive a manual car in the driving school, they teach us to get the car off the slopes only with the clutch. To the examiner, it will appear that the student has great control over the car.

Well, it’s not ideal for your transmission either. First, because for years, driving school cars have been diesel, which are much more grateful for the friction point on slopes — it is not so easy to do this technique with a gasoline car. Second, because we are putting all the weight of the car on the clutch when we can use the handbrake and leave with a normal set of pedals, without forcing anything.

Making the game with the handbrake is less aesthetically pleasing, but it is more economical in the long term. In more modern cars, it is true that this should not be a problem for you, since the vast majority already come standard. slope help assistant. You can always take it out as your teacher taught you without any risk.

Shift into reverse without stopping

Reverse is the most dangerous gear of all if you are not careful. It is really designed to be able to engage it only if the car is completely stopped. This is because the transmission gears are specifically configured to allow rearward movement only when the vehicle is not moving.

Attempting to engage reverse gear while the vehicle is moving forward can cause the gear teeth to bind or break. The faultOf course, it will be expensive to repair.

By the way, this doesn’t only apply to cars with a manual transmission. Most people who have problems with automatic transmissions are usually precisely because of this. Whether your vehicle has a torque converter, dual clutch or variator box, you should not put the ‘R’ until the vehicle is completely stopped.

Leave your hand on the gear lever

The knob isn’t going anywhere. Don’t grab it unless you’re going to change gears.

When you leave your hand on the gear lever, a constant pressure on gears and bearings gearbox internals. These components are designed to withstand intermittent loads during gear changes, but not to withstand a continuous force.

Leaving your hand on can cause premature wear of parts, which can lead to major breakdowns. The right hand should always be on the steering wheel, and only move down towards the lever when we are going to make a change. You should never have to look at the lever, hence it is interesting to practice the movements to be able to enter all the speeds simply by touch. On YouTube you have hundreds of videos in which you can learn how to position your hand for the exact box that your car has and never make a mistake.

Forgetting to change the transmission fluid

Performing transmission maintenance is key to avoiding a major breakdown.

Finally, we go with a maintenance that very few people do, but it is one of the most important things to know about the transmission. The gearbox works with a oil, and this has its expiration date. Changing the fluid every certain number of kilometers will guarantee that the transmission is working with a lubricant in good conditionat the same time we will remove the metal chips that are released from the system from the fluid.

Each manufacturer marks their transmission oil change intervals. There are manufacturers like Peugeot that ensure that their fluid is for life – that is, that it should last as long as the life of the vehicle itself. However, this does not mean that the liquid cannot lose properties. Our mechanic should check it and tell us whether or not it is worth changing it.

Once the oil has been changed, shifts will feel smoother. It should be remembered that in cars with an automatic transmission, this maintenance is one of the most important that must be done on the vehicle. Spanish scrapyards are full of cars that could have had a lot of life ahead of them, but their transmission oil was not changed in time.

Now that we have reached the end of the article, we encourage you to do a bug count. If you have not identified yourself in any of the cases we have described, we congratulate you, because you treat your transmission with great care. On the other hand, if you have detected that you have some other error, we invite you to have the correct little by little so that your clutch and your box last as long as possible.

If you liked the article and want to read more about mechanics, we invite you to take a look at this entry in which we talk about what a broken driveshaft is and how much it costs to fix it.