What gear for what situation. Basically anything not covered below in my post

andrewbrowne

Hi All

Ok so test is done and passed but what there wasn't much infomation from instructor (nor the time to dwell on stuff) on was the different gears especially for the trickier driving scenarios.

Yes the gears to match speed were made to clear for me, as was the taking off gear (naturally), 2nd gear at roundabouts and 1st at a complete stop. Getting up the gears when there's no obstacles and when speed limits match. That's all A ok

Basically just the minimum to pass the test, like stopping and starting and taking off, hill start and reverse.

I'm on about the areas where it is maybe a quick stop but quick enough take off again after which would obviously mean not going round down to the lowest gear nor going up to the highest gear

Test was done before lunch so traffic wouldn't have been that busy to test me on anything else other than what I mentioned

Hopefully anyone that's done the test or can understand where I'm coming might point me in the right direction

Dirty Nails

Only practice will solve that one for you. But obviously if you're doing 20kph you'd be in second & not fifth. Pick the lowest gear that matches your speed & be in that gear before you need to be rather than after you need to be. If that makes sense :)

andrewbrowne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121156789#Comment_121156789

Going up the gears basically be in the gear to match the speed before it. Yep that was a doddle.

Coming down in single gears to go back up sounds like my problem

That method worked perfectly throughout nearly all the test because I was falling down usually only to 2nd gear which is the gear I would have been in for most of my stops. That's basically why there was no kind of in between.

It would be 4th/5th down to 2nd for the stops/semi stops and repeat the process again

My driving was obviously ok (so sadly you're prolly right about experience).

Buffman

You'll pick it up naturally over time. Can't say I bother dropping gears too much for a full stop personally, only when actually stopped. Most full stops would be in 30/50/60 zones so unlikey to be in 5th or 6th gear anyway. Drop a gear to speed up for overtake alright.

Every car model will be different with difference engines and different gear ratios so nobody can tell you to be in X gear for X speed etc.

The key is RPM, so if your car doesn't have one of those nagging indicators which tells you when to shift, you can judge based on you're RPM. Each car will have it's most efficient RPM, find out yours and try to keep it around there.

andrewbrowne

Yeah that nagging engine cry for going up the gears was sorted out with a bit of practice. It was done on instinct after a while by putting up the gear once you had your foot on the gas for a second or 2. You leave yourself with no choice basically only to go up

Coming down the gears I just used more the speed of the car..............as in the feel of the speed coming down as opposed to the speed clock. The onus was constantly on you to have eyes on road and mirrors.

I was done for a bit of coasting alright but advice from instructor was to slow down to 2nd in most stop/yield/roundabouts in case the need is there for a complete stop

Test vs Real life here