Changing up a gear too soon?

anotherbaldrick

The petrol Golf with DSG gearbox changes up at ridiculously low revs . With the selector in D it will try and maintain revs at about 1400 and change up at 2000. But the turbo is able to produce from way down low so the car does not hang but powers away with no bad vibes. In S it hangs on to about 4000 before changing.

tomreid10

Thanks all, interesting replies

dizzyblonde82

I have a new fiat punto with eco-drive and has the indicators telling you when to change gear, mine basically tries to get you up to 5th gear by the time you are at 30mph!

My car can record your driving data onto USB and then you can analyse it using the eco-drive computer programme, I have done this a few times and it seems that I am accelerating to hard and should be changing gear sooner but if I do my car seems to struggle.

Trying to change my driving style to save fuel but it is very confusing on the best way to do this.

grizzly1911

Modern diesels will often pull form fairly low revs, both of mine will pull of without problem at 1200 revs ish on level ground and you don't need to pull away quickly. They will also trundle and pick up from that speed.They will also take changes up early, with less need to change down. Depends on the gearing and torque.

I believe that some diesels (VAGS) are really difficult to stall and the engine management/flywheeel takes over. Stand to be corrected.

But as others here have widely said you need to be in the right gear for the circumstances and you should not labour the engine.

When you change gear "early" accelerate gently rather rather than heavily and that might remove some of the judder.

If the car is very new and the engine still tight that may also affect it. Once again I believe that diesels take a lot more "running in".

z3phyr04

I've been changing up later in my petrol and cruising in town at around 1750-2000rpm as opposed to 1500rpm (changing up at 2500+rpm), car has a lot more pull around this rev range but time will tell if this has helped economy in any way. The only thing about my petrol is the ratio between first and second, if you're in second at 15mph which is roughly 1500rpm this is just about fine but if you drop below this it feels like you need to change down - if I were to do this the car would lurch forward at over 2500rpm lol.

jase1

Being safe trumps fuel economy every time. If you are in a gear where you are unable to accelerate freely, you are labouring the car and potentially driving unsafely as you are not in full control. Ignore the gauge.