If you follow the tips that were just outlined, you will preserve the life of your transmission and car for many years to come.Hold down a shifter for half-a-second or more and the LEDs on your Di2 junction box will flash to indicate charge level. ConclusionĮven if you do not drive a manual transmission car right now, there may come a time in the future when you will and it is important to know how to shift the gears properly so that you can perform well as a driver. High gears won’t help you accelerate fast in most cases. If you want to go faster very quickly, you will use low gears for acceleration. If you want to go at faster speeds, you will use high gears. Acceleration is the rate in which your speed changes whereas speed itself represents how fast you traveled within a certain amount of time (e.g. There is a difference between acceleration and speed. With enough experience, you will know exactly when to shift gears based solely on the engine sound.

Deeper sounds mean you’re in a low RPM range while louder, higher pitched sounds mean you’re at a high RPM and need to shift to the next gear. You will know when you must change gears by listening to the sounds that come from your engine. This may be due to a high performance clutch which takes more effort to operate or simply because there is a problem somewhere in your transmission making it hard to shift.

Some cars are harder to shift than others. As you begin to press down on the accelerator pedal again, slowly release pressure off the clutch.

Take one hand off the steering wheel to gently change the gear. Take your foot off the accelerator pedal while pressing down on the clutch. You won’t notice this so much with high gears but with lower gears, it is easily noticeable. If you want to slow down the car, just take your foot off the accelerator pedal and the car will slow on its own. If you are driving and you want to accelerate very quickly, then switch to a lower gear because this will give your car more power. The benefit of block changing is so you can get better gas mileage and preserve the life of your clutch. Whenever you skip a gear, this is what block changing is. Shifting gears doesn’t have to be done in sequence. If you want to get help with shifting gears properly in your car, below are 5 tips that will set you on the right path. How to Know When to Shift Gears – 5 Tips.

5 hacks for perfect shifting