I really enjoy drivng a manual after years of automatics, but I do still like driving my E55 every so often when I want to be lazy. My question is many times when I drive I build up speed quickly and I'm going 80mph in 4th and I tend to skip 5th and put the car right into 6th gears. Is this bad in anyway, could is causing tranny problems by not going through all the gears? My Dad has been doing this my whole life but he does it worse, he will go from 2nd to 5th at 30mph, but all his cars last forever. To me I think what I'm doing is fine but some passengers think differently. What do you guys think?
M

 

I skip gears very regularly. There are other threads on this and if memory serves there should be no problem if the revs are matched OK. Don't quote me on this though, I'm not a doctor I just play one on TV.

 

Found them, here they are:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...skipping+gears

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https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=50622

 

Thank you for the info.

 

Should be fine, you don't go thru all the gears when you down shift do you?

 

I will often skip gears on upshift when briskly accelerating to a certain cruise speed.

1-2-6 or 1-2-3-6 following a stop/yield onramp, or 1-2-4/5 in typical suburban driving. There's nothign wrong with this as long as your revs are mostly matched and your power usage is appropriate, i.e. dont go 1-2, then into 6 if you feel you will still be stomping on it in 6th to keep accelerating.

 

It's fine as long as your RPM's are high enough. You don't want to "bog" the tranny.

 

Ditto to everything above.

 

I rarely ever skip gears! I love driving, and to me, driving these cars means you're shifting! I like shifting!

 

I know what you mean but I often drive 4,000 miles a month so shifing is fun if I was going to drive 30miles a day for something

 

Pretty much same here, except 1-2-3 then cruise in 5th or 1-2-3-4 and cruise in 6th.

 

I skip gears all the time. Its not a problem. I figure its a lot better to skip gears on a regular basis than occasionally slam it through the geard (which a lot of us probably do from time to time). Like stated above just make sure you fall into the right RPM range and dont have it bogging down on you after the gear skip.

 

Yep I find that often when I'm accelerating on the freeway in 4th, that skipping to 6th has no negative effect. Just a drop in RPMs for saving some gas. Back in my MC days, I regularly drove in 3rd or 4th and never skipped gears because it was very noticeable when I did!

 

Skipping gears saves clutch, synchros and transmissions. It's good to do, whether it's racing or street driving.

 

Before getting my Mini I drove over the road trucks and skipping gears was standard operating procedure. Shifting with out the clutch as well was the normal not the abnormal.

Your fear of breaking things is unnecessary. Reread what people have said about rpm's and gear selection and quit worrying. If you match engine speed to road speed every thing will be fine. If you don't the car will tell you by it's actions and you'll learn what's correct for every situation.

Enjoy the motoring experience, become part of your machine..........

Hope this helps...

 

The syncros are pretty durable in this car, at least in comparison to the s2k. just remember that the syncros are designed to compensate for the difference between the rpm's on one gear change... Its not designed to change from 2nd gear at 6800 rpms to 6th gear at about 2K rpms. What i've learnt from my s2k is to let out the clutch until the revs drop down to where they would be at in 6th gear and then put it into the gear.... When i do that the gear slides in perfectly... like buttaah

 

Fear? No. I have no fear. If I did, the clutch wouldn't drop at 6500k on a regular basis.

The only thing I worry about is the sky falling on my head. Plus I don't need to read what people write or think about matching revs, because I can definitely teach a few people on how to do it properly.

Very true.

No. The machine has become a part of me.....

For it to do my will, all I need to do is think.

 

camelpilot It seems I offended you, that was not my intent. I guess I should have put your quote in the body of my response.

For clairifcation here's what it would look like had I done that:

Before getting my Mini I drove over the road trucks and skipping gears was standard operating procedure. Shifting with out the clutch as well was the normal not the abnormal.

Your fear of breaking things is unnecessary. Reread what people have said about rpm's and gear selection and quit worrying.

Originally Posted by camelpilot
Skipping gears saves clutch, synchros and transmissions. It's good to do, whether it's racing or street driving.

If you match engine speed to road speed every thing will be fine. If you don't the car will tell you by it's actions and you'll learn what's correct for every situation.

Enjoy the motoring experience, become part of your machine..........

Hope this helps...

 

More than a few classic MINI owners might say the same thing if you replaced R53 with "classic" and r56 with "bmw mini".

I say all the MINIs motor.

 

No. The Classic Mini owners would say something completely different. Trust me, I know. I was at the 40th anniversary of the classic, when the first MINI Cooper was unveiled. Classic owners hated it for their own reasons, mainly it's size. I am big into classics yet I didnt have a problem with the new MINI. Because I knew it was it's own car. It was inspired by the classic. Evolved from the classic. It had my respect, and the respect of alot of classic owners who knew a good thing when they saw one.

The R56 is no inspiration. It is more of an Economic evolution, which is usually a result of greed.