Transcript
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Hello everyone and welcome
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In this video we’ll be talking about five bad habits
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that you may fall into driving a manual transmission vehicle.
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And the reason I’m making this video is
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because you know behind the scenes
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there’s a lot of things happening with a manual transmission
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that you may not be thinking about
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if you don’t fully understand how they work.
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So we’re gonna get into these bad habits and
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talk about why exactly you may not want to do them.
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So the first one is you shouldn’t rest your hand on the gear shift in a manual transmission vehicle
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you shouldn’t use it as a hand rest instead whenever you need to shift gear, you know do the gear shift
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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
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if you need to down shift take your hand off put it back on the wheel
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you shouldn’t be resting your hand on the gear shift
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so why shouldn’t you rest your hand on the gear shift? well you have too understand whats happening within the transmission
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so when you are shifting a gear you have a selector fork and you are pushing that selector fork
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up against a rotating collar and you press that collar into the gear that you wanna choose
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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
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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
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now if you’re leaving your hand on the gear shift while it’s in gear
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what’s happening is you could be applying pressure on that selector fork
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up against that collar so you’ve got a rotating component pressing up against
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that
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selector fork and you can wear out that selector fork and so you don’t want
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to be doing that. Now if you just put a little bit of a pressure on it if you’re
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not really touching it much if you’re just kind of holding in place because
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you’re going to you know select another gear next
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it’s not a huge deal but you should know that putting pressure on it can cause
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premature wear of those gear for it’s because you’re pressing up against the
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rotating component and you can even find in owner’s manuals it will tell you
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not to use the gear shift as a hand rest. now another good reason not to leave
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your hand on the gear shift is that it’s also just a good idea to have both hands
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on the wheel for maximum control especially in any sort of competitive
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environment. So moving on to number two
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one bad habit is to leave it in gear while you’re sitting at a stoplight so
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if you come up to a stoplight the best idea instead of just leaving it in gear
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take it out of here put it in neutral and let your foot off the clutch
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so why should you do this well here is the pressure plate and this is the
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diaphragm spring and so this is what’s going to be engaging and disengaging
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your clutch and so within your transmission this is the throw out
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bearing and so when you push in that clutch pedal
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what you’re doing is you’re pushing the throw out bearing up against this
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diaphragm spring and you’re relieving pressure so that it doesn’t clamp down
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on that clutch disc
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so when you’re sitting at a stoplight and you put it in gear
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what you’re doing is you’re pressing this up against it and you can wear out
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these throw out bearing so it’s unnecessary wear to just have it sitting
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there so you can just put it in neutral
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let out the clutch and then you know it can sit there and it’s not wearing up
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against it
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now the other thing is when you do have your clutch engaged with it in neutral
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you’re not gonna have your clutch spinning in there so you know if you did
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start to have some clearance issues with your clutch
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you could have some premature wear just sitting there with an in gear
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rather than engaging it now people will argue hey you know you want to have it
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in gear just in case you need to get up and go or whatever but you know there’s
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plenty of scenarios where there’s going to be a car in front of you a car behind
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things like that there’s no need to just leave it in gear and it doesn’t really
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take any time to put it into gear it’s a very quick thing to do
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and the other thing people say it’s like hey you know you might get rear-ended
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you want to have it in gear so that you know if your foot comes off the clutch
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your vehicle stops it’s like well you should have your foot on the brake so if
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you are going to get rounded your foots are going to be on the break I’ve had
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this happen to me twice
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unfortunately in my Subaru STi where I’ve been stopped with my foot on the
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brake cards in neutral and I’ve been hit from behind and it’s not a big deal you
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know you keep your foot on the brake your kind of natural reaction in an
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emergency situation like that is a tendency to break because you don’t want
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to move you’re not trying to move
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so your thought is I need to stop moving so you hit the brake when your foots
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already on it you know obviously you’re just going to stay stopped but anyways
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the big point there with leaving it in neutral when you come to a stop light is
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to prevent premature wear of this throw out bearing which is going to be
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pressing up against that diaphragm spring
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moving on to number three you should never use the clutch to hold yourself on
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a hill and this may seem pretty obvious but plenty of people still do it where
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you basically feather the throttle and the clutch pedal to get that sweet spot
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where your vehicle doesn’t
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roll down the hill but what you’re doing is you’re burning up the friction
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material on your clutch disc so your clutch is spinning at one speed and your
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engines is the pressure plate here which sandwiches this clutch disc between the
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flywheel
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this is going to be rotating at another speed based on your throttle
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so you’re rotating this at one speed in order to bring this up to speed and in
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doing so you’re just gonna be wearing out this friction material because this
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is rubbing up against the pressure plate and flywheel and so you’re going to be
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wearing out your clutch and there’s just absolutely no reason to do that
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so instead what you should be doing is just holding the brake when you’re on
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the hill that seems pretty obvious but the next question is okay well how do I
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accelerate
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well there’s two things that you can do actually probably three things a lot of
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modern cars now come with break hold and so when you’re on a hill and you have
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the clutch pressed in when you let your foot off the brake
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they’ll tend to hold you now plenty of vehicles do not for example I don’t
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believe this nissan 370z has it
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and so in that case if it’s not a big hill you know you can just kind of wait
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and then get on to the throttle fairly quickly bring out your clutch a little
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bit so you know you’re ready to do that and have a transition you may roll a
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little bit back but not much where it matters now the third scenario let’s say
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you’re on a pretty steep hill and you don’t want to roll back because there’s
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a car right behind you
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well what you’re going to do is pull the brake you’ve got your clutch pedal and
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your foot on the brake
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you can now let your foot off of the break assuming your brakes going to hold
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you
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and so then what you want to do you can put it in gear now you’re going to start
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to ease off of the clutch where it starts to bite and you’ll feel this
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because the car is going to start to talk a little bit and then you’re going
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to let off the brake and then you’re off now it’s a good idea to practice this on
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flat ground so you get the hang of it before you’re actually on a hill and you
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need to actually do it for real
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so you know you can just find an empty parking lot something like that pull the
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ebrake start to let the clutch out
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you can feel it start to grab let me break down and you accelerate you don’t
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roll back at all
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number four
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didn’t apply a lot of throttle when you’re not at a very high engine rpm
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so for example if you’re in sixth year and I’m going 40 miles per hour right
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now it’s not a good idea to floor it because what you’re doing is you’re
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lugging the engine it’s not a huge gearing disadvantage and you’re telling
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it to accelerate as hard as it can and so you’re kind of conflicting there
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so rather than you know flooring in 6th gear it’s a much smarter idea don’t be
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lazy
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just down shift if you need more than 50 or you know go down the second gear if
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you need you can skip gear so long as you rub match i have a separate video
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explaining that but it is important that you know if you need to accelerate don’t
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be lazy just down shift because you’re going to lug the engine
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if you have it in you know 60 or 40 miles per hour in the engine RPMs are
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really low and you’re telling it to work really hard but it’s that such a huge
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gearing disadvantage that it doesn’t work out it can cause problems and
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finally number five
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one thing you don’t want to do is while you’re driving rest your foot let’s see
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here on the highway rest your foot on the clutch pedal and that also seems
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pretty obvious but it’s also something that some people commonly do and so
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there are several reasons why don’t want to do this first of all resting your
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foot on that clutch pedal means your clutch may not be fully engaged in so
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you can have a little bit of slip with their clutch disc
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you’re not putting down full power and you can be wearing out your clutch
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another reason there is you can be wearing out your throw out bearing once
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again because you’re pressing that throw out bearing against the diaphragm spring
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as i showed earlier in the video
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so those are five habits that may be fairly common for some people if you
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don’t fully understand how manual transmission works
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hopefully that cleared up the confusion and hopefully you know you can learn
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from that if you are applying any of these bad driving techniques you know
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from time to time i’ll always find myself resting my hand on the gearshift
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lever it’s not the end of the world you know I’m not applying a ton of pressure
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on and wearing out that fort but there are some little things like that
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what you may not always be thinking about which you you know but should put
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a little bit of thought into while driving a manual transmission vehicle as
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you could wear it out a little bit sooner
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so thank you guys for watching and if you have any questions or comments feel
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free to leave those below
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I guess it really need to make the noises i mean it’s got a great sounding engine.