AZZGUY

I often shift directly from 3rd gear to 5 th - does anyone know if it does any harm?
Everything goes very smooth - so strange noises and shifts very easily. Your comments please.

Nforce1

iTrader: (2)

If your at the right speed.... I wouldnt see any harm in it...

samw1978

no harm, I do it often also

MannishBoy

iTrader: (1)

I tend to go from 4th to 6th all the time, skipping 5th. Modern transmissions can handle this with the synchros. Don't worry.

Gerry

I do this also. No reason to use all the gears if your not getting on her

AZZGUY

I downshift sometimes - other times just slow down - depending on distance before stopping and speed traveling at the time. Feeling perhaps the clutch wear is less than the brake wear. I love to zip - but also not one to zip up to a red light 1/2 block away - let up on gas and let the engine do the braking - which I notice it does a better job in the stick than it did in the automatic. After slowing I will sometimes down shift once before braking
Thanks for the advice everyone - (hate to be paying for a transmission)

nbdyfcnsqnc

I skip all kinds of gears without even thinking about it. I upshift and downshift and even shifted sideways once.

shopdog

When I want to ease around the neighborhood in a gas saving manner, I usually shift 1->3->5 or 2->4->6 depending on terrain. There's no need to go through every gear every time unless you're trying to do a power run. Fewer shifts mean less wear on the clutch and less wear on the gearbox.

AZZGUY

Thanks! You have all put my mind to ease - didnt want to be doing something bad and find out in a year ( or less ) that I was ruining the transmission.

The Z is a fun - easy - car to drive!! Going to the mountains for the month of August - all thos mountains are real Z Country.

CatastrophZZ

there shouldnt be any harm, unless you're going 120 in 5th and shift down to 3rd then yeah....

ares

iTrader: (2)

I asked this many months ago. as I rarely ever hit 5th, sometimes no 4th either. I was told, its better if you shift into the gear, but never let the clutch out. just to let the synchros do their job for each gear rather than 1 synchro doing double duty. so thats what Ive been doing, I go 1-2-3-4-5-6 but I only let the clutch out when I want to accelerate in that particular gear.

04evo2

If im going real fast at the end of third sometimnes i go from 3 to 6.

cehome

iTrader: (7)

Man, I have to unlearn what I've been taught recently. I'm learning to drive stick before I take delivery of my Z. The instructor is always pounding into my head. "do not skip gears when upshifting". I do exactly what the original poster says. Go from 3rd to 5th directly. For some reason I have a hard time finding 4th gear.

___DJK___

iTrader: (2)

Thats what I do too.

shopdog

That's crazy talk! :-)

The only time a synchro does any work is when there is a speed mismatch between the driving and driven gears. Since you should always speed match *before* shifting into a gear, the synchros should see minimal wear. However, if you are continually shifting in and out of gears *you aren't using*, you're just subjecting the synchros for those gear sets, as well as the shifting linkages, to unnecessary wear. Keeping the clutch depressed while doing those unnecessary gear changes also increases wear on the throwout bearing.

MadMax76

Can't do this, I got the obssesive compalsive crap going on, gotta go through all the gears .

overlord tom

Didn't the last few years of Camaro's and T/A's have that forced skip from 2nd to 5th or something under low throttle in order to meet EPA gas mileage regulations?

It does no harm at all. In fact, you DO get better mileage skipping gears. I usually do 1-2-6 myself in traffic, and keep it in 6th until speeds go below 25, then back to 2nd or 3rd. Even doing 0-40-0 mph two dozen times a day in gridlock, I still average over 21mpg. I'm impressed.