Hi

Had the Fabian a week now. Noticing the gear ratios seem quite short I realize it's a 1.2 so maybe that's how it should be. 

My arm seems to be going up and down like Fiddlers Elbow 😃.

I can be doing 35 in 6 th Gear. The dash comes up with change from 4- to 5.  5 to 6

With very little speed actually being done.

I'm thinking on a Motorway run this might be a disadvantage. Last Car I owned was a 2.0 Diesel 70 on the Motorway revs just starting to approach 2000. I guess it's the price you pay for modern engines fuel economy etc.

You are driving, change gear when it is right to, not when some person not in the car and no idea where you are engineered it to show you when to change gear. 

Always try to block change save the Clutch.

Trying to explain this to Wife who won't come out of 4th Gear in case she goes in to Reverse 😭

You've got 6 gears(!).

 

I put what Ootohere has recently in another thread (but about wrong box 😄) when my wife had a hire VW (SEAT) 1.0 (3pot) TSI (110PS) it had 6 gears and you'd be in 3rd at 15mph and 5th at 35 mph which was fine pootling around an empty town , I think it was that low to save the engine with a pot missing.  Ootohere disagrees but I think VW 4-pots have always been a bit badgers arse, certainly to me have sounded rough for decades at least, hence all the insulation on VW, might as well have a diesel for all the noise.  So take one away pot and things can't improve, unlike other manufacturers they never really made small three cylinder engines before recently (and 1 litre isn't that small).

 

I have proven to my neighbour, in his Ren-No! Nissan that ignoring the suggested gear change points increase fuel economy and does no harm to the engine as the revs are still not high and well within the power band.

 

For block changes they are often suggested by the car anyway, which you can often ignore for best effect by I go from 6th to 4th or even 2nd where appropriate and 2nd to 4th when the car suggest 3rd because the computers are not yet programmed with the road gradients or se the road surface condition, the vehicles in front of the vehicle in front.  Perhaps when they buy the information learnt by these shop delivery robots (though that might go to the military).

 

What you want to bear in mind with the gearing, you might have only so far driven the car with just the driver or one passenger, three passengers I've found makes a big difference, and I don't mean with three big passengers, so imagine four passengers and then with luggage, perhaps a roof rack too, then going up and long slope or hill and back down with tight bends.  1st gear is always a bit annoying on a family car, until you need it.

 

You are giving the reasons why I suggest not spending on cosmetics until you've driven the car all year round in all conditions as you don't really know the car until then and what you might want to change on it, also things you might have originally thought you wanted to change no you have got used to or see the point of - and you've saved your money for the bit(s) you never expected to fall apart so soon. 😆