Looking to get a Subaru Impreza Wagon. Seeking Advice.

Doing that is just plain wrong. People who do that or otherwise abuse their clutch should expect rapid clutch wear just as people who ride their brakes while driving should expect rapid brake wear.

It's simple enough; select a proper gear, slow down by applying brakes a bit, speed up by pressing the accelerator a bit. If the grade changes a bunch, select the proper gear again.

Mike

Reply to
Michael Pardee
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Reply to
gpatmac

The process of engine braking has many nuances, as skilled drivers know. Good engine braking involves rev-matching and appropriate use of brakes as well; this is how I always drive, and I have never replaced a clutch in more than 200,000 miles of standard transmission driving. My current A4 has 92,000 miles on the factory clutch and feels perfectly fine.

Reply to
KLS

OK, I see what you're saying. What's the benefit of all this effort?

Reply to
Tom Reingold

There is not a direct benefit to daily driving, however, rev-matching and downshifting to slow the vehicle in preparation for a corner allow the driver the ability to keep the engine revs up, thus keeping the turbo spooled and the boost up. While cornering this allows the driver to exert more control over the line of the turn by using the throttle in conjunction with the steering wheel. It also allows access to more power when exiting the turn, allowing for quicker acceleration. So, although not practical for getting to work and back on dry days, there is a benefit to the technique for getting maximum performance out of the car. It can also be used at lower speeds in lower traction conditions to help maintain control of the car. This can be particularly helpful in snow where the use of the brakes could result in easily locked tires.

Kyle

Reply to
Kyle

For daily driving it sounds like a dumber than dumb idea for exchanging transmission & clutch wear for brake pads. However; if used to obtain maximum velocity for conerering as in track racing I see good. JMO

Reply to
Edward Hayes

Just braking will, once you've slowed down a bit, leave you in a situation where you can't jump out of trouble (or around someone who cuts in front at the last minute (-:) by putting your foot down because the revs would be wrong - you'd first have to choose and engage an appropriate gear. By staying fully engaged in an appropriate gear and using engine braking, I leave more options open for dealing with the unexpected: I can accelerate hard /immediately/, and my brakes are cool for if I need to brake hard (admittedly, I've never felt brake fade in my STi anyway).

That may not often be useful - I'm pretty cautious and risk-averse, so I plan for low-probability contingencies - but I don't go through clutches and transmissions strikingly quickly so the price can't be that bad. Also, in Britain everybody seems to be /taught/ to use engine braking as much as possible, brakes as little as possible, and not to be driving in neutral, so a comparison of national vehicle maintenance statistics might be instructive? (We're visiting Britain next month, renting a Renault(!), so I get to re-read their driving advice to know what to expect/do.)

I've heard that steering response can be worse when the car isn't in gear, but I don't know how true that is. Does that make any sense to anyone?

-- Mark

Reply to
Mark T.B. Carroll

You, Edward, clearly have no clue how to drive to the maximum capabilities of your manual transmission car. Do yourself and everyone else a favor and buy an automatic transmission in your next car.

This is what those of us intend to achieve by engine braking, Edward. Got it? We're safety and performance first, unlike you, evidently.

I learned engine braking from my mother, who was born in 1933 and while not exactly being a Shirley Muldowney type was in her heyday a practicioner of driving cars as they were meant to be driven. Today is a different story, though, now that she's older: she drives a 2005 automatic transmission Subaru Outback, and this car suits her needs and habits perfectly after many years of German manual transmission cars (Audi, Mercedes, Volkswagen).

Daily driving, Edward, often (if not usually) presents surprises and challenges that are best met by keeping your car/transmission in the correct gear at all times. The brakes are the final element of this system.

Reply to
KLS

Now that you've done your ranting as a self appointed expert let us move on. You might be interested in this tidbit. When I was racing Porsches 911s in 1976 we/I always used engine braking when appropriate as when coming to a sharp decreasing radius turn after a 140+ mph straight. We were taught by Porsche to use engine braking ONLY so as to not overheat the brakes. Where did you go to drivers school expert?

Reply to
Edward Hayes

KLS wrote:----------------snip-----------------

I disagree (unless you meant daily RACE driving). I feel most (no, not all) 'SURPRISES and CHALLENGES' encountered in 'daily driving' would require brakes to be the primary and usually first element utilized. I would not use engine braking to assist in avoiding debris suddenly encountered on the highway, holding the vehicle on a hill or coming to a quick stop when surprised by a kid chasing a ball into the street. Engine braking is occasionally useful for the predictable and mundane.

Carl

Reply to
Carl 1 Lucky Texan

Carl 1 Lucky Texan writes: (snip)

I think you're missing the point. Engine braking is a useful add-on to the regular brakes, which is why for an emergency stop you should release the throttle and brake immediately but not push the clutch down until the revs are lower, but if you've not been using your brakes much in regular driving then they'll be cool for when you /do/ need them.

But, more importantly, sometimes the surprise/challenge is best evaded by accelerating. For instance, if something's unexpectedly coming right at you and your escape route is ahead, not behind, because you're blocked by other traffic or whatever behind, then the couple of seconds you gain from already being in an appropriate gear might be what lets you get ahead to the gap that's out of the way of the collision with the sudden idiot.

For instance, if you've been slowing to take a sharp exit ramp, you're being tailgated so you can't brake too much without maybe being rear-ended, and some jerk merging from the entry ramp just before it doesn't look like he's about to yield, you can then shoot ahead of him to get to the exit ramp soon enough to make it over ahead of him. (Though, these entry ramps quickly followed by exit ramps on some cities' freeways are a recipe for disaster anyway - nothing like forcing rapid lane changes at high speed!) Similarly, when you're slowing to take an exit ramp, and some fast idiot pulls over behind you because he misjudged your speed and didn't see the exit ramp in time, you can quickly increase speed so they don't rear-end you.

Broadly, I tend to use the throttle when I've more traffic close behind me than ahead of me, and I want to get out of the way onto clearer roadspace from some unexpected idiot coming at me from another direction

- part of the point of having an STi is that the power allows you to do some things you couldn't otherwise do. Except, you can only immediately accelerate if you were already in the correct gear.

For this reason, when there's dense traffic changing lanes, etc., I'll tend to be in a gear that puts the engine at higher revs than if I were just cruising on an empty road, so that (adjusting for my inertial frame of reference) I can reach road ahead of me as well as behind me at short notice, in case that's where the path of greatest safety suddenly lies. It's all about keeping more options open. But, if you're in the correct gear, then you can use engine braking for free so, hey, why not?

So, I use engine braking extensively because I've /already/ paid the price for it in the gear shifting I did to keep more evasive-maneuver options open to myself. But, maybe Ohio drivers are particularly bad.

-- Mark

Reply to
Mark T.B. Carroll

Indeed. I try to keep my car in the "correct" gear for the situation so that I have all my options available, including acceleration as needed.

Reply to
KLS

maintaining the correct gear for a given driving condition is hardly the same as downshifting repeatedly to engine brake INSTEAD of using the the brakes which is, I believe, the heart of the contention here. They both obviously work for some people so do whatever you're comfortable with. Anyway, someone else can have the last word.

Carl

Reply to
Carl 1 Lucky Texan

Carl 1 Lucky Texan writes: (snip)

When you're partway through slowing down, if you've not been downshifting then you're /not/ in the correct gear for the driving condition. That's part of the objection!

Nobody said categorically that you must never use the brakes at all during slowing down: the objection instead was to using your brakes more than necessary, with the engine disengaged from the wheels. Sometimes the engine braking alone won't slow you down fast enough, even if you don't follow the guy ahead of you very closely, so then you have to use your brakes a bit.

So, sure, I bet that most of us here use our brakes in daily driving, that's why I limited myself to saying that I try to minimise their use and I don't slow down with /just/ my brakes. The idea of never using brakes whatsoever in routine driving is a strawman. The point is more that if you've got engine braking available for free (which you do if you're already keeping your maneuver options open by being in the correct gear for the driving condition) then you should use it, only using your brakes more as last resort, so that you can keep them cool and less worn.

-- Mark

Reply to
Mark T.B. Carroll

I firmly believe that accelerating to avoid is the worse answer to almost all situations. It has always been my impression that the car exiting and overtaking a slower car entering a controlled access highway should slow down enough to come in behind that vehicle. What if that jerk is someone driving a nice 300 HP STi. He may suddenly hit it and accelerate, at best you are now beside him. You miss your exit and he just takes the offramp and comes around again to get back on the highway. You now have to wait for the next exit. At worse you pull into him and have to hope that it looks more like their fault instead of yours.

By the way I know this works cause I've done this with my old GTI. I lived in Huntsville, AL where jerks in big ol pickups would deliberately make this kind of manuver as people attempted to merge on to the parkway. It suddenly dawned on me that I could just miss this on ramp and take the next one, while the blocking the jerk from exiting. I always made sure the jerk was ahead of me by the next on ramp, didn't want to play chicken with the rednecks.

Reply to
Theodrake

Having just got a '02 WRX and having had a '85 GTI, I did a lot of slowing down with just 2nd and 3rd gears in my GTI with that 10.5:1 compression. But it just seems to me that the WRX with the lower compression doesn't slow down as fast.

But I've got to say in my freeway driving in LA, I stopped using engine braking because too many people in rush hour traffic are expecting brake lights to give them a clue you are slowing down. The suddenly slowing down GTI in front of them seemed to confuse them.

So I'm not saying don't use engine braking, but think about when and where you use it.

Reply to
Theodrake

Theodrake writes: [ what if the guy coming in off the exit ramp throttles hard? ]

In wondering why our experience is so different, I wonder if the issue is that when I'm coming to exit over a short change-over ramp, I'm already slower, so the impatient people in their shiny cars are already going way faster than me to enter the freeway so there isn't a "blocking" problem. If they're already showing signs of impatience, like accelerating fairly hard on the entry ramp, I'm quite happy to slot in behind them.

I don't think I've ever accelerated such that someone at the same speed as me beside me has had time to react fast enough to stop me moving over

- it just doesn't seem to happen. Whatever they're driving, the head start I get in acceleration while they're reacting turns out to be enough. Probably because if they're going as slow at that late entry stage as I am to exit, they're not racer types anyway.

(snip)

Well, that'd be a dumb thing to do.

(snip)

The point of the maneuver is to get out of the way of people who are attempting to merge. I tend to find that they don't object to me doing so! If they wanted to get ahead and they have a powerful car, they'd already have done so and I'd have been happy to slot in behind them - it's not like I'm normally also trying to exit as fast as I can.

Certainly I've never come close to having any problems doing what I suggest - I can't even remember the last time someone did try to match my acceleration, let alone came close to actually stopping me moving over. But, if they did seem keen to, I can still brake and come in behind them - they probably now made a nice gap for me, and that would bring me back down to the speed I wanted to be at in the first place.

-- Mark

Reply to
Mark T.B. Carroll

I'm guessing I misunderstood your original proposition. Its just been my experience that most drivers doing this just don't want to slow down to a safe exit speed.

Reply to
Theodrake

Ah, right, yes, that could indeed cause trouble and anger! It's probably good that you encouraged me to clarify what I meant.

-- Mark

Reply to
Mark T.B. Carroll

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