Question for manual drivers...

[SndyDrver]

I drive a 2nd hand jetta Mk.4 manual, its my first car and I have been driving it for 3 years lovingling, its has come to my attention an oddity of a trend...

When I have handed it over to someone to drive (aka dealership or friend) they always left the car with the shifter in gear and the parking brake down. Is it just me or am I being a square and playing it safe:

My rule of thumb: When a driver turns off the car, gets out of the seat closes the door, he/she must put it in neutral and the parking brake up, otherwise the car will roll and or have its trans slight worn/stressed or destroyed.(hence the lever's name E-brake, Handbrake, Parking brake)​

P.S. to moderator: by 100 posts you can close this thread as enough people will have answered my thread in their various points of views and opinions.

 

[inferno]

I know!!!! ok. calming down now. yeah, several times i've let someone drive my truck, and every time they park it they never set the parking break but rather leave the transmission in first to keep it from moving. I never do this. i'm just like you i always put it in neutral and set the parking break so it's fairly aggrivating. but to make it worse, whenever they do that, the next time i go to get in it the gear shift will have become lodged into first and i have to give it a good tug to get it to move. it cant possibly be good for it and i dont know why people do this.

 

[lmracer]

its all natural habit. whatever you feel is better. personally i think the e-brake cable gets stressed more than your transmission coggs in everyday use. the engine will turn over long before any mechanical shearing takes place.

if your not on a hill, i say leave it in gear. preferably a taller gear to reduce moving potential by requiring large amounts of torque to budge.

 

[daan]

Over time the handbrake cable will loosen and it will become less effective. When I park, I always leave it in gear with the handbrake off. There is no danger of it running away down the hill, which there is if its only held by the handbrake. The only time I use the handbrake is when I'm sitting at traffic lights, waiting on them to change.

 

[the Interceptor]

I always leave my car in gear and without handbrake when I park it, in 1st or reverse, depeding on which way to go next. I don't see the problem with that, apart from not being used to it probably.

 

[skip0110]

I always leave it in 1st and engage the ebrake. I know putting it in a higher gear would make more sense, but I put it in 1st out of habit.

Putting it in gear has saved me once, one time my ebrake failed and i would have rolled into a neighbor's house.

daan - Did you know that all you need to adjust the ebrake cable tension is two open ended sockets? (and possibly a screwdriver to take off your console)

 

[retsmah]

Right now I'm not using the parking brake because the parking brake has been freezing with how cold it is, and I'm certainly not going to fix it until it warms up

Usually I use the parking brake and leave the car in gear, and turn the wheel to the curb if I'm on a hill. But you won't hurt a transmission by leaving it in gear while parked.


edit: Actually the lower gears make more sense, they will give you more braking. Reverse would be the best in most cars, although I too use first usually. I used to have a weird habit of using second

 

[The Vanishing Boy]

-> Every time I park my WRX wagon or any M/T car I use, I jack up the E-Brake first while holding the brake pedal then putting it to either 1st or 2nd gear (whenever I feel shifting the gear at). But with the case in my wagon in which it has a turbo timer (its always set in 30 seconds), I just let the e-brake do all the work. (:

 

[Pupik]

I used to pull on the parking-brake handle and leave it in neutral, because I hated when the car stalled immediately after releasing the brake handle. Only in the last year or so of owning the Neon did I put it in 1st gear afterwards. even then, I notice very few Lexus "stick" owners around here seem to put their car into 1st (or any other) gear when leaving it outside. They just seem use the brake handle, and leave it in neutral, so I don't think it's that odd.

The Neon parking brake never seemed to weaken much after 180,000 miles, it received an adjustment when a rear brake service was performed, I suppose.

Of course, I live in an area where there's very few inclines, and zero hills, except for some older homes' driveways which have less drainage (the fear of flooding doesn't really occur in the suburbs of South Florida, as long as your home was built around 40 years ago). But I've used the parking brake on every manual or automatic car since day one as a habit.

 

[inferno]

I always leave it in 1st and engage the ebrake. I know putting it in a higher gear would make more sense, but I put it in 1st out of habit.

actualy putting it in a higher gear would make it more likely to roll as it makes the ratio between the drive wheels and the engine closer to one-to-one. the lower of a gear you put it in, the more force at the wheels it would take to rotate the engine, which is after all whats holding you still.

 

[SndyDrver]

I see so u wont hurt the tranny; I leave it in neutral cuz of force of habit. I start the engine with the clutch down and then without looking at my shifter i lift my leg, let the engine idle for a couple of seconds, take a deep breath, put it in gear and accelerate to drive away, so habitually I would stall the car if i took the leg off the clutch and waited for a coulple of seconds.

Edit: wait i forgot about the brake pedal, i do that too while starting the car, its so habitual that i didnt even think about it, its like my limbs have a mind of their own with i sit in my car

 

[the Interceptor]

Right now I'm not using the parking brake because the parking brake has been freezing with how cold it is, and I'm certainly not going to fix it until it warms up

There you have another advantage - the parking brake can freeze, the transmission won't.

I see so u wont hurt the tranny; I leave it in neutral cuz of force of habit I start the engine with the clutch down and then without looking at my shifter i lift my leg, let the engine idle for a couple of seconds, take a deep breath, put it in gear and accelerate to drive away, so habitually I would stall the car if i took the leg off the clutch and waited for a coulple of seconds.

Any specific reason you do it like this?

 

[skip0110]

actualy putting it in a higher gear would make it more likely to roll as it makes the ratio between the drive wheels and the engine closer to one-to-one. the lower of a gear you put it in, the more force at the wheels it would take to rotate the engine, which is after all whats holding you still.

Youre right (retsmah too). 👍 I was thinking that you push start in 1st so that would be the worst gear to leave it in, but I guess thats something totally different.

 

[Duke]

Over time the handbrake cable will loosen and it will become less effective. When I park, I always leave it in gear with the handbrake off. There is no danger of it running away down the hill, which there is if its only held by the handbrake.

Actually, that's not true at all. If the car leaks compression, even slowly, then parking it in gear will not hold it. My old Supra (which had the worst handbrake setup evAr) would regularly be sitting with its back wheels in the gutter after inching its way down my driveway overnight.

actualy putting it in a higher gear would make it more likely to roll as it makes the ratio between the drive wheels and the engine closer to one-to-one. the lower of a gear you put it in, the more force at the wheels it would take to rotate the engine, which is after all whats holding you still.

Nope, you've got this dead backwards.

A lower gear makes it easier for the engine to accelerate the drive wheels - and vice versa. On the other hand, a higher gear makes it harder for the wheels to drive the engine (and, of course, the engine to drive the wheels).

 

[SndyDrver]

Actually, that's not true at all. If the car leaks compression, even slowly, then parking it in gear will not hold it. My old Supra (which had the worst handbrake setup evAr) would regularly be sitting with its back wheels in the gutter after inching its way down my driveway overnight.

Nope, you've got this dead backwards.

A lower gear makes it easier for the engine to accelerate the drive wheels - and vice versa. On the other hand, a higher gear makes it harder for the wheels to drive the engine (and, of course, the engine to drive the wheels).

hmm that doesnt happen to my car, it holds steady as a rock once the parking brake is up, and my car has 40k miles on it

 

[Famine]

Over time the handbrake cable will loosen and it will become less effective. When I park, I always leave it in gear with the handbrake...

Ditto, but with the handbrake ON and the car in a gear contrary to the direction of slope (if the car's pointing downhill it's in reverse, if it's pointing uphill it's in 5th) and the steering wheel turned so as to allow the car the minimum amount of travel should everything else fail.

 

[lmracer]

Actually, that's not true at all. If the car leaks compression, even slowly, then parking it in gear will not hold it. My old Supra (which had the worst handbrake setup evAr) would regularly be sitting with its back wheels in the gutter after inching its way down my driveway overnight.

Nope, you've got this dead backwards.

A lower gear makes it easier for the engine to accelerate the drive wheels - and vice versa. On the other hand, a higher gear makes it harder for the wheels to drive the engine (and, of course, the engine to drive the wheels).

engine size and resistance to turn, or friction, could have something to do with this.

 

[Duke]

hmm that doesnt happen to my car, it holds steady as a rock once the parking brake is up, and my car has 40k miles on it

That's because 40,000 miles is practically brand new. My Supra had 260k on it when I sold it. It shouldn't happen in a newer car, but it can happen even in a newer car. It shouldn't be stated that leaving the car in gear will PREVENT it from rolling.

Especially if you leave it in a lower gear (like 1st) thinking that will make it harder to turn the engine over.

 

[lmracer]

Especially if you leave it in a lower gear (like 1st) thinking that will make it harder to turn the engine over.

Duke is right. a higher gear would actually be better.

 

[inferno]

Nope, you've got this dead backwards.

A lower gear makes it easier for the engine to accelerate the drive wheels - and vice versa. On the other hand, a higher gear makes it harder for the wheels to drive the engine (and, of course, the engine to drive the wheels).

erm, no. a lower gear makes it easyer for the engine to drive the wheels and harder for the wheels to turn the engine. thats why engine breaking is more effective in lower gears. it's the same deal only your engine breaking to a stop. 💡 haha.

 

[lmracer]

erm, no. a lower gear makes it easyer for the engine to drive the wheels and harder for the wheels to turn the engine. thats why engine breaking is more effective in lower gears. it's the same deal only your engine breaking to a stop. 💡 haha.

...but a lower ratio means torque is multiplied to the wheels, effectivly working opposite when you introduce force to the drivetrain in reverse. less torque is required to move the engine parts. more torque is required when you get farther from 2:1 and closer to 1:2. think about how the gears mesh, and not so much the engine speed

 

[skip0110]

Yeah Duke, if the engine has more mechanical advantage when turning the wheels then the wheels have less mechanical advantage when turning the engine.

In 1st 1 rpm tire means 3000 rpm engine (lets say). In 6th 1 rpm tire means 1000 rpm engine. So if you are turning the tire it's easier to do so in 6th...you need more rotations but less force to achieve a fixed engine rpm.

So a lower gear is better.

 

[Dave A]

The lower the gear, the bigger the cog the engine is turning in the gear box. The higher the gear, the smaller the cog. If you have two cogs driving a car then the smaller the cog in the gear box the harder it would be for that cog to turn the engine. Now lets say you have this car and theres one cog attached to the engine, lets say there's a gearbox with 4 gears in it, the cog on the engine is size 7, the first gear in the gear box is size 6, 2nd gear is size 4, 3rd gear is size 2 and 4th gear is size 1, it would be harder for gear 4 to turn the fianl gear, than gear 1 to turn it. The final gear is a set size, so that's not a factor, the only factor is the gear you engage. Low gear = your engaging the final gear with a bigger cog, higher gear = your engaging the final gear with a smaller cog.

 

[inferno]

...but a lower ratio means torque is multiplied to the wheels. effectivly working opposite when you introduce force to the drivetrain in reverse. less torque is required to move the engine parts.

exactly. in a lower gear more torque is applied to the wheels from the engine when accelerating. reverse the flow of torque (now going from wheels to engine) and the ratio is flipped meaning that first is now the highest ratio that could be selected. see now?

 

[skip0110]

The lower the gear, the bigger the cog the engine is turning in the gear box. The higher the gear, the smaller the cog. If you have two cogs, one is attached to the engien, the other to the wheels, lets say there's a gearbox with 4 gears in it, the cog on the engine is size 7, the first gear in the gear box is size 6, 2nd gear is size 4, 3rd gear is size 2 and 4th gear is size 1, it would be harder for gear 4 to turn the fianl gear, than gear 1 to turn it. The final gear is a set size, so that's not a factor, the only factor is the gear you engage. Low gear = your engaging the final gear with a bigger cog, higher gear = your engaging the final gear with a smaller cog.

It's easier for a little gear to turn a big gear. If you are in 4th you have a "size 1" (attached to the tires) turning a "size 7" (attached to the engine).

 

[Dave A]

EDIT: lmracer has illustrated it well.

 

[lmracer]

It's easier for a little gear to turn a big gear. If you are in 4th you have a "size 1" (attached to the tires) turning a "size 7" (attached to the engine).

YES.. and therefore you want the little gear to be moving a larger gear.

a high gear: (5th?)
engine OO axels

a low gear: (1st?)
engine OO axels

see how it is more difficult to move the engine while its in 5th?

 

[inferno]

YES.. and therefore you want the little gear to be moving a larger gear.

a high gear: (5th?)
engine OO axels

a low gear: (1st?)
engine OO axels

see how it is more difficult to move the engine while its in 5th?

No. you have to reverse it when power is flowing the other way. (yes you have the big gear/little gear thing right)

 

[skip0110]

It would be harder to turn the axles in 1st, because for every rotation you need to turn the engine over several times.

EDIT: when the tires are trying to turn the engine over, the mechanical advantage works in the opposite direction. (ratios are inverted)

 

[Poverty]

My dad does this. I never bother. I see it as more of a old car thing. If the car is properly maintenanced, well look after and fairly new the hand brake will suffice.

Although if I was in country that was extremly cold, or the car would be left for long peroids I would also use the gears.