Am 07.10.2011 14:12, schrieb Invisible:

> My previous car was somewhat unusual, in that it has a fifth gear. As
> best as I can tell, the gears work more or less the same, except that
> the engine really isn't happy about exceeding 55 MPH or so unless you
> change up into fifth gear - which is kinda tricky the first time you try
> to do it.

Unusual? Five gears (plus reverse) have been pretty standard since decades.

> My current car is completely different. For a start, it somehow has
> /six/ gears. I've never seen any vehicle anywhere that has that many.

Seen that.

> Also, the change points are just odd.
>
> Once again, you start in first, and once the car is travelling faster
> than plate tectonics, you need second gear. Then it gets weird. Round
> about 20 MPH the engine runs out of power, and you need third gear. And
> when you get to about 30 MPH, you need forth. At 40 MPH you need fifth,
> and at 50 you need top gear.
>
> Needing to be in forth gear just to drive around a 30 zone is just weird.
>
> (Note that these are the speeds you need to change for cruising.
> Obviously if you're trying to accelerate hard, you stay in a lower gear
> for longer. But nobody wants to drive around a housing estate revving
> the nuts off their engine.)
>
> These gear settings seem very strange to me. Rather than adding more
> gears up top where there's lots of empty space, they've added more down
> at the bottom where there's already plenty of them...

It's good for fuel-efficient driving in stop-and-go traffic, as you 
don't have to rev up the engine that much to reach the minimum speed for 
the respective next gear.

Post a reply to this message