[Dr J L Edwards]

What is the optimal/recommended RPMs for each gear? At what RPM reading should one downshift to prevent lugging? Are there specificiations for this? Is sixth gear strictly an Overdrive? Will driving at low RPMs damage the engine?

I realize these overlap, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[BLK EOS]

Optimal power/torque is obtained at the higher RPM's though red lining is a bad thing. 2.0T is a high rev motor. No harm using lower RPM's for steady speed highway driving. (saves gas) Get a feel for what allows smooth acceleration and stick with it. Where you decide to shift depends on how fast you want to accelerate. I've found 6th to be an overdrive gear. I drop to 5th when climbing freeway grades. Personal preference stuff. Hope that helps ya. Having fun is the key and a manual trans fits that bill for me! (I like the 2 foot old school style over paddles)

 

[Lucid Nonsense]

The owner's manual may have recommended shift points, but I've always found it's best to drive by feel, listening to what the car's telling you. Smoothness is key as BLK EOS has already mentioned.

The 2.0 TSI motor, which I assume you have in your Eos, has a lot of torque, and it comes on early - typical for a turbo motor. This graph on APR's website is helpful, stock torque is the white dashed line (scroll down):

http://www.goapr.com/products/ecu_upgrade_20tsi_trans.html

With all that torque on tap you'd have to be in an extreme low speed/high gear situation to lug the engine. If you feel the car lugging, just shift to a lower gear. You won't harm the engine during a brief period like that, and next time you'll instinctively know to shift to a lower gear before it happens.

Conversely, it's not advisable to rev the crap out of the motor, nor is there any need from a performance standpoint. Same graph above, you can see the stock HP (red dashed line) peaks just past 5K RPM. Past that point power declines, so you may as well shift to a higher gear. Unless you're bound and determined to beat the good ol' boy in the '83 Camaro to the next stoplight (j/k, I would never condone street racing).

Enjoy the 6-speed - my wife and I certainly love ours. Although it's a cable-operated shifter, I've been impressed with its precision since we bought the car.

 

[Dr J L Edwards]

What is the optimal/recommended RPMs for each gear? At what RPM reading should one downshift to prevent lugging? Are there specificiations for this? Is sixth gear strictly an Overdrive? Will driving at low RPMs damage the engine?

I realize these overlap, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the good answers. I would still like to see tha actual numbers (RPM), high and low for each gear. Thanks in advance. Jerry

 

[Lucid Nonsense]

Thanks for the good answers. I would still like to see tha actual numbers (RPM), high and low for each gear. Thanks in advance. Jerry

Unfortunately I can't help you out with that. I did check our owner's manual, and I didn't see any speed/rpm listings for the various gears. I had hope because I've seen that in older cars' owner manuals, or at least the max recommended speed for each gear.

Unless you need this data for another purpose, for driving it will be perfectly adequate to downshift if the car lugs and upshift when reaching 5K rpm or thereabouts when aggressively accelerating. Part of the fun of driving a manual transmission is that there's an art to it, but it truly isn't hard to get the hang of the basics.

Good luck -

 

[BLK EOS]

I believe the answer to your question has too many variables. It mainly depends on road incline; however, wind, gas quality, surface condition ect all play a small factor in what is right at any given moment. The correct RPM in one situation may be the wrong in the next. Each car has it's own nuances as well playing a small factor. 'It's all about feel' as Lucid Nonsense and I have said.

Shifting a manual trans can be like surfing a wave or hitting a golf ball. Three activities of which only two I feel confident.

Good luck Doc

 

[drbass]

Have to agree with everyone else above.

There's no hard-and-fast rule, many variables will determine when up-or-downshifting is required, or desired.

I've known people who revv out (to the redline) every single gear, every time. Not necessarily accelerating hard, just using the whole revv range. Ouch.

Others do 50 km/h in top gear and expect the car to pull away no matter what. Ouch again.

What I normally try to do (remember, I have Diesel-engined cars) is to "cruise" at around 2,000 rpm. That allows me to plant the right foot any time without "lugging" at all. If it's flat and not much traffic I'll happily choose a gear that has the engine revving around 1,600 - 1,700. If I'm in a hurry I happily revv the diesel to redline (but that doesn't happen too often, there's simply too much torque to be had much lower in the revv range).

All that changes (generally towards higher revvs) when I have to carry a load, or the family.

Downshifting is pretty much the same deal, you simply want to make sure that the revvs in the lower gear are in a range that suits what you intend to be doing.

Interesting side note: I always thought of the USA as the automatic transmission centre of the world, yet here you guys are discussing manual trannies. EOS drivers must be a very different demographic .

Seeya,
Michael

 

[geoffa1]

Dr JL hasn't said which motor he has.

If he can advise this, then someone with a DSG attached to the same motor could advise the shift points in normal and sport mode, perhaps under hard and sedate acceleration.

I think this would give a guide as to what VW believes the shift points should be.

 

[Lucid Nonsense]

Dr JL hasn't said which motor he has.

If he can advise this, then someone with a DSG attached to the same motor could advise the shift points in normal and sport mode, perhaps under hard and sedate acceleration.

I think this would give a guide as to what VW believes the shift points should be.

I'm thinking he has the 2.0 TSI, since the Dr didn't say "OBTW I've got a TDI/VR6" in his subsequent post. A different motor would make a big difference, of course!

Good idea about looking at the DSG shift points - they're in the ballpark for at least the first two gears, but unfortunately the ratios diverge for the higher gears.

 

[Lucid Nonsense]

Interesting side note: I always thought of the USA as the automatic transmission centre of the world, yet here you guys are discussing manual trannies. EOS drivers must be a very different demographic

Automatic transmissions definitely are the norm here in the States, but there a few of us left that prefer a "standard" transmission and enjoy using a clutch. In nearly three decades of buying cars & trucks, I've never bought an automatic. I think VW sells more manuals percentage-wise than most other makes, and it's a credit to them that they even bother to offer the 6-speed Eos in the U.S. Just try to find a four-adult-passenger convertible here with a manual; the few 2009 models we were able to consider were the Eos, C70, 3-Series and S4.

It was amusing shopping for the Eos. The salesmen were flummoxed when we told them 1) It will be my wife's daily driver, and 2) She wanted the 6-speed.

 

[neh321]

Concur with above comments. There is no hard and fast rule.
Gear-changing is instinctive once you can drive properly and if you still can't change up/down at the right time then perhaps an automatic transmission is the answer!

 

[geoffa1]

Concur with above comments. There is no hard and fast rule.
Gear-changing is instinctive once you can drive properly and if you still can't change up/down at the right time then perhaps an automatic transmission is the answer!

I agree, although when teaching my son to drive, some guidelines as to the rev range in which a motor works best were useful (when he would have been in 5th at 10kmh or in 1st at 50kmh).

Part of this teaching included the fact that the rev range is vehicle specific - the paid instructor was teaching no 1 son how to pass a licence test in the instructors car, rather than teaching him about driving in general.

For those clutching their nether regions and groaning, I should point out that I was teaching him in the Forester that was purchased for teaching sons 1 and 2 to drive, not the Eos (that they will only pilot her on the way back from interring my dead body).

I was eventually congratulated by his licence tester for his driving ability - he finished his training with me in his own car (which he paid for himself), where he will spend the next 3 or 4 years, rather than the instructors car, which he will never drive again.

Victoria requires kids to have a log book proving 120 hours of driving experience before they are allowed to even go for their licence. No 1 son had over 140 hours, but they disallowed over 10 hours 'cos they couldn't read his writing. A girl in Victoria recently was not allowed to do her test at all 'cos the take away food stains etc on her log book caused them to reject it.


I will now get off my soap box !!!

 

[Z-man]

I think VW sells more manuals percentage-wise than most other makes,

I would think Porsche sells a larger percentage of manuals than their tiptronics.

Then again, isn't Porsche now part of VW-AG? I'm so confused...

As to the topic at hand - revving a motor to near redline won't hurt the motor, but folks who typically make a habit of doing this also drive their cars hard, and put them away wet. Slamming through the gears, downshifting to slow the car down, releasing the clutch before the next gear is properly engagd - these actions can cause more damage than bringing your motor up to redline. Having said that, red-lining a motor day in and day out will mean that your maintenance windows will be shortened - your oil viscocity will break down sooner, and engine components will need replacement sooner.

I have a Porsche 944S2 - When I'm driving it on the racetrack, I will bring the motor up to almost redline before shifting. For just about every up-shift. When I am driving it on the street, I'll shift to a higher gear a lot sooner than redline. My shift points depend on several factors, including:
1. Is the motor warmed up? (If not, I won't wind it out as much)
2. Am I in the mood for some spirited driving?
3. Am I near the end of my journey? (If so, I'll not rev it much much, to allow the car to cool down a bit)
4. Am I in a hurry? Do I feel like accelerating briskly?
5. Am I just cruising around going nowhere fast?

Keeping the car in a lower gear past the 'peak hp' revs will still allow the car to accelerate faster than shifting to a higher gear. Acceleration is based on many factors, including torque, and gearing. (Horsepower is more of an issue with regards to top end speed). At a given speed, a lower gear will almost always offer greater acceleration than the next highest gear (provided that either gear won't put the motor in an over-revving situation, of course!)

Regarding downshifting: first off, one must NEVER downshift to slow a car down. There is a far cheaper system which was designed for this -- it's called the brakes. A bit of history trivia - in years gone by, when MG's, Minis and Fiat Spiders were the norm on racetracks, they would use downshifts to slow the cars down. Why? Because after a lap or two, their miniscule brakes would be ineffective, and in order to slow the car enough for the corner, the drivers would use whatever means possible, including downshifting. In modern racing cars, a downshift is accompanied by a heel-toe rev-match blip of the throttle - this is done so that the decelleration attitude of the car is not effected by the downshift.

So - when does one downshift on the roads? like stated above - it all depends on many factors. It depends on what you need the car to do - if you need to accelerate away quickly to avoid an accident, then grabbing a lower gear sooner is better. If you're trying to prove that a VW Eos is a better alternative than a Toyota Prius in terms of gas mileage, you may want to stay in the higher gear longer.....

Sorry for the long post,
-Z-man.