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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Manual Gears Stop Bandits
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 08-18-2011 08:27 AM
I love to watch idiots in four wheel drive trucks and S.U.V.s driving on icy roads. They spin their wheels and they go down the road diagonally with the steering wheel pinned hard-over because they think they need to put their transmission in LOW LOCK.
That is the exact opposite, wrong thing to do. On snowy, slippery roads, you want to take some of the power AWAY FROM the wheels until the car builds momentum so you don't spin your tires and you only need two wheels propelling the car so you prevent the vehicle from crabbing because of different thrust directions between the front and the back wheels.
My brother was one of those idiots who would not believe that you "need" to use 4-wheel-low on slippery roads until I took him out in my car and showed him.
I've driven my car through snow up to the headlights and through water as deep as the hubcaps. It's ten, going on eleven years old. It's got 125,000 miles on it and the only repairs I have done to it, besides regular maintenance, are to replace the muffler and replace the clutch slave cylinder. When I took it in to get the cylinder replaced, I asked the guy whether I should replace the whole clutch. He checked it out and said I don't need it.
With a little luck, God willing, I might even get another 125,000 miles out of it! ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 08-18-2011 12:59 PM
I eventually got rid of my Mondeo at 218k miles (wheel bearings were starting to rumble, one of the radiator fans had failed, cambelt replacement was coming due, coolant pump leaking - was about to cost a lot more in maintenance than the car was worth, even if I did do some of it myself), and as far as I know it still had its original clutch. I bought the car at 105k and there was no record of any clutch replacement in the documents that came with it. As it had a full dealer service history up to that point, I think there would have been.
Agreed totally on the snow. Last winter was the first seriously cold one (as in, snow and ice on the ground for more than a day or two) in my part of England since 1995-96, and the number of cars I saw coming to grief as the result of overly hard acceleration in a low gear, or overly hard braking made for a lot of free entertainment. Keep in as high a gear as possible without the engine labouring, accelerate and brake very gently and leave a paranoid distance to the car in front, and unless there's a blizzard blowing right in your face (in which case the main problem is visibility rather than traction) you'll be fine. The only real problem I had was snow settling on the headlight lenses and reducing visibility in the dark.
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Sam Graham
AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues.
Posts: 1431
From: Waukee, IA
Registered: Dec 2004
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posted 08-18-2011 04:56 PM
When I first got my VW New Beetle (GLX 2.0 Turbo 5-speed manual) back in '02, I picked up Wife #1 at work on my way back from the dealership and we went to dinner.
As I drove down the interstate on-ramp, I was feeling a bit showy, I guess, and put it in third and floored it to get the turbo rush. Once I was on the highway, I was already at cruising speed so I went directly to fifth gear.
Wife #1 got this funny look on her face as she stared at the shifter.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"You skipped fourth gear," she said.
"Yeah"
"Why did you do that?"
"I didn't need it."
(pause)
"Is something wrong?" I asked.
"Well it never occurred to me that you could do that," she said.
So what lesson was learned here?
To my knowledge, right up to her passing, whenever she drove the Bug, she never, ever, even once, used fourth gear.
I guess it made her feel smarter or something.
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Jon Miller
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 973
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 08-18-2011 08:50 PM
quote: Sam Graham
As I drove down the interstate on-ramp, I was feeling a bit showy, I guess, and put it in third and floored it to get the turbo rush. Once I was on the highway, I was already at cruising speed so I went directly to fifth gear.
En route to work, I skip-shift from third to fifth on the freeway on-ramp, which goes downhill around the point I'd ordinarily shift into fourth. Instead of relying solely on the engine, I let gravity help me get up to speed.
When I approached driving age, I insisted on learning how to drive a manual transmission out of fascination with the process of driving a stick and have only owned stick-shift vehicles. Absent a brain fart or two, driving a stick is instinctual to me. Considering these clueless-carjacker incidents, it's great to be in this elite minority, although I worry about an armed carjacker murdering someone over a manual tranny (IIRC, it may have happened before).
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