haha

 

Putting your car in neutral means you need to find the proper gear if something happens and you need to get the f*ck out of the way. Letting the engine wind down is the proper way to drive, but for most of us, going into neutral is perfectly fine.

As for "engine braking", it is perfectly fine as long as you properly match the revs as you downshift. If you feel the car jerk or the motor strains as you get into the lower gear, you are putting a lot of stress on the motor and drivetrain and need to rev just a little bit more to properly downshift. Being in gear as you are braking lets the motor help wind down your speed enough as it is, but obviously, it doesn't help enough to really see a difference these days.

 

You should always ALWAYS leave the car in gear when it's moving... it's for safety purposes. If your motor were to stall while you were in neutral and coasting, you'd lose your power steering and brake assist. If you leave the car in gear while braking to come to a stop, the motor will still be spinning (because the wheels/drivetrain will be propelling the motor) even if there is no spark or fuel in the motor at the time (essentially like it's stalled but the motor still turning due to you being in gear), so you will still have functioning power steering and brake assist systems.

It can potentially be extremely dangerous to coast with the car in neutral in the event of an engine stall while you're still moving. You don't have to downshift through the gears while decelerating to do this either... just keep it in gear as you brake and start to slow down. Sometimes if I'm in 6th gear and coming off the highway on an off-ramp where I need to stop at a stop sign or stop light at the end of the ramp, I'll downshift once about halfway down the ramp into 3rd gear just so that my engine doesn't get too low in the RPM's, but that's about it. Engine braking in our cars is very ineffective due to the fact that they're relatively efficient and smooth motors, so you gain very little braking power from compression braking alone.

 

Hmm, I just learned to drive stick and I just put it into neutral.. It saves gas

 

Proper technique is leave it in gear and downshift as necessary, blipping the gas just before you downshift to rev-match the engine with the gears. This is done regularly in racing, where drivers use the heel/toe technique to blip, shift and brake simultaneously. Heel/toe is an important technique to learn if racing, since downshifting in a corner without rev-matching, will cause the wheels to loose traction and the car will oversteer - ending up in full spin or worse. At race speeds, this could be fatal.

So is it OK for the engine? Absolutely. Is it safe? Yes, if done properly. Should you do downshift? Depends on how good you are - if you DON'T select the proper gear to shift into, you could damage the engine. How? Rev limiters only work on up shifting. If you downshift and rev the engine deep into redline, say goodbye to your engine. Example, a downshift at 80 mph into 2nd, will do serious damage. Heel/toe is not necessary in learning how to downshift - just learn how to blip the gas before shifting down and it will be a very smooth transition - if you have the speeds right. Practice is the key.

There's all kinds of videos out there, that explain how to do it properly.

BTW, this is good advice for stopping as well - being in gear is safer than coasting in neutral - plus you save on gas when in gear. Neutral forces a supply of fuel to the engine to keep it running. Staying in gear in modern engines consumes no fuel at all.

 

I use to downshift when i slowed down.. but i didnt want to with a newer car.. unless i have to slam my brakes i will downshift to help slow down..

 

It actually wastes gas, believe it or not. When you coast with the car in neutral, you still use gas to spin the engine while you coast. When you coast with the car in gear above a certain RPM, your car goes into Fuel Cut mode and no gas at all is used until the RPMs drop below a certain point or your speed drops below a certain point (this is assuming your motor is fully warmed up).

 

If the road is empty as ****. I'm going to coast.


YOLO.

 

That's fine, do whatever you want... but keep in mind the original point of this thread is "proper stopping with a 6MT".

 

 

Always go into neutral and use the brakes. I also always avoid sitting at the lights in gear with the clutch in, i have a habit of taking off quick from the lights and i'm sure a lot of you can relate.. aha.

 

no such thing as quick from the lights in a g.

 

I think you're the first person to mention the clutch in or out at stoplights on this thread.... so I'll give a little detail on that topic for the purpose of the OP and anyone else trying to pick up tips about proper manual transmission driving from this thread.

Holding the clutch in at stop-lights and other situations is referred to as "riding the clutch", and it's extremely bad for your throwout bearing portion of the clutch assembly.... regardless of whether you have the car in gear or in neutral while you have the clutch down. The clutch should only be used while in transition between gears and while starting the car. Any other situations that you don't want to be in gear, just put the car in neutral and let the clutch out rather than using the clutch as a form of Neutral.

If you trash your throwout bearing, you've essentially trashed your whole clutch because of the fact that it's a pretty labor intensive job to change out a clutch, and you almost always change out all the parts of the clutch at the same time whenever you have it off of the car to avoid replacing just individual clutch components and having to go back in and replace another clutch component at a later time.

 

I've been driving a MT for many years across several manufacturers (foreign and domestic) and styles of vehicle (coupe, sedan, suv, truck). I LOVE my G and would NEVER buy one with an automatic. Ever.

Many of these guys have great tips and any newbie to a manual tranny should take much of this into consideration.
However, my advice would be to know YOUR car and how it responds to YOUR driving habits. If you constantly "ride it hard and put it up wet", expect to be the guy on here constantly asking how to fix stuff and b*tching about how costly these cars are to maintain.

I was told by my driver's Ed teacher to imagine that your grandmother is sitting in the pessenger seat knitting, and you don't want her to poke herself or look up at you and tell you you're going too fast. That being said, I think the lesson was to always try to make the mechanics of the car work in harmony. Shift smoothly, don't slam anything into place, turn down your radio and enjoy the sound my friend. You have a car that can handle a little abuse every once in a while, but there is no such thing as a cheap transmission job (that lasts).

There is taught experience and bought experience... You choose.

 

Just coast in neutral and start braking ahead of time with light pressure. Downshifitng only causes wear and wastes more gas if anything.