If you shift too early, you run the risk of lugging your engine, asking it to move your car forward at an unnaturally low RPM.
Shifting Before Your Car Has Stopped
If you switch between reverse, park, and drive too quickly, you run the risk of grinding your gears and causing serious damage to your car's transmission.
The key is to wait long enough to make the final one downshift. As you can imagine, if you downshift from 5th to 2nd too early, and/or you don't match the revs with a good heel & toe, you'll either over-rev the engine, or upset the car's balance.
Can I go from 5th to 2nd/1st? Yes it is recommended that in a modern manual transmission you can skip gears when going up or down. For example; when accelerating you can if required change-up from 1st to 3rd, though 3rd gear may labour due to low engine revs.
Theoretically, you can. In practice, you will never do so. Second gear is low enough to slow down to walking speed. If you really want to stop completely, you then just brake and press the clutch.
Engaging the clutch momentarily disconnects your engine from the transmission while you transition into a new gear. Slamming your car into gear not only hurts your clutch, but it could also damage your engine.
With skipping gears on downshifting, don't shift down to a gear that'll cause your engine to exceed its redline. That can potentially require a very expensive fix. A simple rule of thumb is to skip no more than two gears at a time.
Gears can be changed up or down. This has nothing to do with the direction you move the gear lever, it simply means that you change to a higher gear (4 or 5) or a lower gear (1 or 2).
It's fine to up shift skipping a gear. Down shifting though, well, as long as you are within the normal RPM range for the gear you are down shifting to. Example: Down shifting from 4th to 2nd and 2nd gears max speed is 65MPH. Then as long as you are down shifting from 4th to 2nd 65MPH or lower you will be fine.
If done correctly, there is no reason why you couldn't skip gears when shifting up into a higher gear by, say, going from 2nd gear into 4th gear. Matching the RPMs to the gear is essential for doing this smoothly without jostling your passengers, but it won't harm your car's mechanical components.
Generally speaking, it's always a safer bet to come to a full stop before changing gears using your automatic transmission. By doing so, you can let all your major components adjust to the shift. It also preserves the integrity of your entire drivetrain.
But the good news is that it doesn't do any harm. Unlike a manual transmission, which forces you to use up a little bit of your clutch disk every time you shift, an automatic transmission uses a fluid to transmit power from the engine to the driveshaft. So you're not really causing any extra wear and tear.
'Granny shifting' describes the process of methodically sequencing up or down through the gears – as taught by your driving instructor.
Automatic transmissions that shift hard, jerk or shake during a shift change may mean your transmission fluid needs changed or fluid level is low. In manual transmission vehicles, abnormal gear shifts could indicate damaged gear synchros, worn clutches or other, more severe issues.
For one reason or another, there are times were you think it might be beneficial to start off from a stop in second gear rather than first in your manual transmission car. In most cases, though, doing that will cause more wear on your clutch.
You may accelerate and brake and at the same time and this will make the car to lose control. The best practice is to set your left foot on the dead pedal or let it rest while using the right foot for both acceleration and braking.
They can cut the fuel to prevent that in a torque converter type of automatic or in the case of a dual-clutch transmission, can disengage the clutch pack completely to prevent driveline wear. The reason we shouldn't shift into Neutral at traffic lights is to prevent driveline shock.
While braking, you should always depress the clutch.
This is one of the most common scenarios wherein people do apply the brakes but forget to disengage the clutch in-turn stalling the car. Well, stalling the car especially with transmission load will take a serious toll on your vehicle's gearbox assembly.
If you have manual transmission, you will likely have noticed that driving in too high a gear for your speed and RPM range causes the car to shake and move slowly, commonly known as “lugging.” Lugging creates an unnecessary strain on the engine and can damage your cylinder heads, leading to expensive repairs later on.
The principal benefit of leaving your car in gear is that doing so prevents it from rolling away. This means that, while it isn't necessarily a bad idea to keep your car in gear when you're on flat ground, it's most important to do so when you're parked on a hill.
Be sure to push the clutch pedal all the way to the floor. Push it briskly but don't stomp it. Likewise, release it briskly but don't yank your foot off. Push the clutch pedal all the way down before you move the shifter, and move the shifter all the way into the new gear before you release the pedal.
Remember each car will be geared slightly differently, but a good rule of thumb for changing gears is that first gear is for speeds up to 10 mph, second gear is for speeds up to 15 mph, third gear is for speeds up to 35 mph, fourth gear is for speeds up to 55 mph, fifth gear is for speeds up to 65 mph, and sixth gear ...
It does not harm if you upshift from 3rd to 5th, skipping the 4th, under "right conditions" (you don't lug the engine or put stress on the transmission). Infact, automatic transmissions like the Volvo I-Shift precisely does this by monitoring the vehicle load, speed etc among other vehicle parameters.