Hello I'm Chris. On one of our previous videos, we had a look at how to position your hand
correctly on the gear stick using the palming method. In this video I will show what to
do with your feet and when to change gears in a manual car. But why do we need to change
gears at all? Well, as you speed up, you'll have to change up gears to match your speed.
Although 1st gear is powerful, it's also the slowest. 1st gear is used to get you going,
slow crawling situations and steep hills. When to change gears can vary from car to
car, whether you're on a flat road, uphill or downhill and how much weight is in your
car. Let's start on a flat road. In this car 1st gear will take you up to about 10mph before
the engine starts to get a bit too loud and you'd have to change up to 2nd. The engine
sound is important. When it's sounding like it's starting to work too hard, or it's starting
to get noisy then change up gears. 2nd gear will take you up to about 20mph before the
engine starts to get noisy again and then change up to 3rd. At 30mph we can then change
up to 4th gear. 4th gear is not powerful, but it can go a lot faster than 1st. Also,
the higher the gear that you're in, the better for fuel economy. But how do you actually
change up gears? What do you do with your feet? You'd first have to build up speed and
momentum with the gas pedal, hear the engine sound get louder, which then tells us to change
up. You'd have to come off gas, clutch down, change up to 2nd, clutch up gently and then
back on the gas. Make sure that you don't look at the gears when you're driving as that
could be dangerous. Also, don't force the gear. If you feel any resistance then you're
probably trying to change to the wrong gear. Once you've changed gears then keep both hands
back on the steering wheel. Let's have a look at when to change down to a lower gear. You'll
have to change down gears if you've slowed down and there's not enough power to drive
at that slower speed. I'm about to turn left. I'm slowing down to about 15mph and now 2nd
gear will be best at this speed. I'd be driving too fast if I was to turn in 3rd. Let's see
what happens if you do turn left in 3rd gear. The engine doesn't like it, it shakes the
car, it feels uncomfortable, feels out of control. 2nd at that speed works perfectly.
Be prepared to change down to 1st gear for a left turn if the road you're turning in
to is very narrow or if goes up a steep hill. Always make sure that you've slowed down before
changing down gears. I can see a mini-roundabout coming up, so I will slow down and then change
down to an appropriate gear which would be 2nd for this speed. I'm making sure that I
come off the clutch before the roundabout so that I don't coast. Coasting is driving
with the clutch still down which could make you free wheel and lose a bit of control.
What happens if I don't slow down before changing down? Then you'll get a very jerky motion
in the car like this... What happens if you pull away in any other gear but 1st? Unless
you're going downhill there's a good chance that you're going to stall the engine. Block
gear changing is when you skip gears. For example, you can change from 3rd gear to 1st.
As long as you've slowed down to an almost stop. There's no need to change down through
the gears when stopping. Block gear changing is better for your gear box and your clutch
and it's less work. Block gear changing down is a lot more common than block gear changing
up. I'm in 4th gear and I'm going to be stopping on the left. I won't have to change down through
the gears. Because I'm stopping I can leave it in 4th gear and get the clutch down just
before it shakes and judders. Low gears are normally best if you're going uphill. Build
up speed and momentum before changing up gears on an uphill. If not then the car will struggle.
If you are going uphill and it starts to struggle then change back down gears. Let's see what
happens if you don't build up enough speed when going uphill. So, I'm changing up gears
too early here and the car is starting to struggle a little bit. It's a bit sluggish.
Now I will change up to 3rd gear. Now the car is very unhappy. Really struggling, so
I'm going to change back down to 2nd. Still not enough power, so I'll go back to 1st,
sounds a lot better, build up a bit of speed and then change back up gears. I could use
5th gear in this car at 40mph plus. I'm turning onto a dual carriageway which has a 50mph
speed limit. I'm on the slip road which is normally used for acceleration and to match
the speed of the drivers on the dual carriageway. But the driver in front is preventing me from
doing this. I'm increasing speed slowly, I'm in 3rd gear at the moment. Get up to 4th.
Checking my mirrors and blind spot, signalling right to join the dual carriageway. Still
slowly increasing speed, the driver in front is still accelerating slowly, get more speed
out of 4th, then get up to 5th and overtake because it's safe. Planning ahead I can see
traffic building up. Slowing down, leaving the gear as late as I can. Changing down to
3rd gear now as that matches the speed that I'm going at. So I've gone from 5th to 3rd.
Increasing speed, watching the traffic lights as they could change at any moment. Now I'm
up to 4th gear. The traffic is starting to clear now, building up speed, watching this
white car cutting in front. Now I'm up to 5th gear. Speed limit on this dual carriageway
is 50mph. I'm going to leave the dual carriageway now. Still in 5th gear. I'm going to avoid
changing down through the gears. Leaving the gear change as late as possible. Still in
5th gear. Slowing down, clutch is down, straight to 1st gear as I'm stopping. Well that's the
end of the video. Really appreciate you watching. If this video has been useful then please
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