Indeed, shamefull attempt to separate himself from involvement in those particular convo's.

Sweet and innocent Jason?!?! Surely not

Chris

The points people are making about not labouring the engine are true, except for the fact that the vRS isn't labouring at 30mph in 4th or at 60mph in 6th! It's still got more 'go' on tap than the majority of cars.

Sounds like your instrucotr has trotted out some standard bull about which gear you should be in when. Truth is that it varies depending on gradients, traffic flow and all other sorts of variables, not to mention the type of engine you have.

Plus, where is the trouble in doing a quick 6th to 4th shift if you want to give it some?

I mean, if you had a Civic Type-R would your instructor tell you to keep it in the v-tec zone all the time as this is where it is most responsive? Of course not.

I think Chris GB's answer is the most sensible so far (i.e. saying that there is no hard and fast rule)- and he's a driving instructor who actually drives a vRS every day! Go figure.

Advanced driving courses are useful for telling you about observation and road positioning etc, but as for telling you what gear to be in when- rubbish.

There is no right or wrong, it's just driver preference.

I drive in low rev's for economy but within a second it can be wound up by dropping a few cogs.

But that's not to say my way is best. You should drive like however you feel comfortable with.

Exactly - I change my driving style depending on what mood I'm in, the level of noise coming from my left (SWMBO) etc etc - If I have a customer in my car I drive in what I feel is the most 'comfortable' manner, different from other times where I may fancy a bit of excitement

I use 6th all the time for tootling along in economy mode on motorways, dual carriageways, A roads, and like some of the other posters here have found that should I need to, then I waggle the little stick thing by my left thigh, at or around the same time as pushing the left leg up and downa bit.................

Changing gears

Radical idea dudes :D

Never below 1800 rpm cause engine is designed to be driven above that!

If you ever got chance to drive automatic tdi you will notice that the gearbox keeps the revs always in the turbo zone except you have no load at all' date=' going slightly downhill etc.[/quote']

:confused: dont know if the fabia is the same, as the Superb only has a 5 speed box, but my car pulls happily from as low as 1250rpm and fast enough to keep up with traffic easily and without labouring the engine, dont even need to floor it, just tickle the accelerator!

Obviously if you are on a mission to race every tw*t on the roads then you would keep the revs higher, but why waste fuel when you can just knock it down a gear or 2! anyone that says they get better mpg at higher revs is, frankly, talking out of their a*se. If the engine isn't labouring and is purring happily then the lower the rpm the better for economy.

The Auto's i've driven will happily cruise just above idle speed on a level road in the highest gear possible if you are maintaining a set speed.

Also I dont understand why the observer would be worried about 6th gear and the time it would take to change down through the gears to be able to accelerate when they promote the use of block changing anyway:confused:

I have an advanced licence (and a racing licence) which I have held for many years, I am booked up for a refresher course soon too, but I hope my observer doesn't expect an easy time - I will argue my point if I dont agree with what he's saying, and also that you can't apply a set of rules regarding gear changes to all cars, as different cars have different gearing, also the way cars are driven and run in can effect the way they drive so you must always treat each car individually.

My observer had me drive in 6th from low down to see how it compared to other 6 speed cars, she was happy with my using it from 50ish as the torque means acceleration is not a problem.