Yep absolutely her observer/ instructor thought it was better to change up much later after 4000rpm, he had no experience of diesel turbos and drove a Rover 75 petrol with a 1.8 engine

Oh and no dpf on a Fabia vrs not that I agree with adapting your driving if you have one.

But there is a DMF and these are prone to failure if you accelerate firmly from low revs?

The issue I feel she had was lack of quality instruction it was variable and inconsistent , the old adage you get what you pay for with volunteers , subsequently her confidence was shattered and she became a worse driver as a result , took a considerable time for her to feel safe behind the wheel again.

Apart from some minor bad habits there was nothing much wrong with her driving she has an exemplary record and is very experienced.

I think it would've been a very different experience with better or perhaps younger instructors

This is quite disappointing to hear, but as I may have mentioned earlier, the quality and knowledge of volunteers varies enormously and some groups would allow you to become an observer with the only qualification being that you'd passed the IAM test so you could be being taught by someone who scraped through or who was a Police class 1 who sailed through it. Fortunately, HQ are now trying to standardise the training with a National Observer Qualification that will hopefully improve things, although they may still have certain (crazy?) ideas about what is expected of associates. I'm not sure where in the country you/she is, but if you want to have another stab, I'm more than happy to try and put you in touch with a better quality instructor.

I was always taught to go down the gears when approaching a hazard to ensure you are in the correct gear all the time and to make the most out of engine braking , but then I was taught to drive a large variety of vehicles

This certainly used to be the case, but with advances in performance and reliability of braking systems, current thinking suggests to use brakes to slow and gears to go.

Chris

Best luck trying to skip a gear in a truck , that's why you work your way down the 'box

Sorry, but that's just plain wrong, as well as being a straw man since we're not on an LGV forum.

http://drivelinenews.com/videos/dual-clutch-transmission-animation/?HD=1

Very nice animation of DSG, and especially gear synchro mechanism

That's correct - you're basically arriving at the hazard having got everything done in preparation so you can negotiate the hazard. Traditional Roadcraft suggests that speed should be matched to vision such that the corner is divided into three phases:

1. Braking until the limit point is matched

2. Holding neutral throttle while limit point is matched

3. Accelerating to chase the limit point when it starts to run

An alternative approach is to slow more than necessary in the first phase, such that you can be applying positive acceleration to squat the car down and increase stability and "chase" the limit point in the 2nd stage, meaning in theory a lower entry speed but a higher exit speed.

A (nice and simple) analogy I like is that you can model tyre grip as £10 which you can divide up to spend on braking, accelerating and steering. This means that the earlier you can wind off steering, the earlier you can spend more on acceleration and still remain within the envelope of grip of the tyre. For racing drivers who want to drive on the limit of grip and transition between brakes, steering and acceleration to achieve this, the Circle Of Grip model is worth a look:

Chris

I like that, as long as you understand that there is always a certain amount of grip in any present road conditions to be parceled between different driver inputs (braking, cornering, acceleration) you will be allright. The mastery lies in knowing exactly how to divide that cake and at the highest levels how to "create" grip by controlling dynamic load distribution for each wheel.

I was only ever taught to block-change coming down the box on my advanced driving course although I use it often 3rd to 5th or 4th to 6th (except in my 93 Polo, block down is risky in that!) Engines these days are so flexible and torque engineered that the skipping of a gear doesn't impede progress on the change-up.

I am membership secretary of the local IAM group and also an observer. When I first started to drive it was essential to use the gears to slow down 'cause the brakes were crap (showing my age). Small drums that were even worse in the wet. However with modern large all round servo assisted disc brakes engine braking is not needed so changing down through the box is unnecessary and just means more time with one hand off the wheel (unless using the paddles with a DSG gearbox).

I have been with drivers who say they change down through the box for engine braking but watching their feet shows that they put down the clutch and then hold it down as they move the gear level through its positions - so actually no engine braking.

Tomorrow I collect an Octavia vRS with DSG so a new learning experience for me as it is my first auto. Loved it on the test drive.