emac0408

Because of the close ration of the gears and hills where i live, i often skip from 4th, 3rd, and even 2nd to 6th. I recently heard that skipping gears is bad for the transmission (hard on the syncros). I was told that you need to pause a few seconds before shifting into 6th.

Is this true?

If i pass through the gears i'm skipping when shifting w/o pausing, will that prevent the syncro wear? For example, when shifting from 3rd to 6th, i would shift into 4th and 5th along the way.

s2k aok

i would assume in the long run you'd wear the gears out unevenly or something but i'd assume something else will give prior to having that much significant wear differences. i like shifting, so i hit every gear up and as many as i can going down, third is still my favorite de-acceleration gear though...

aresk3b

I believe that it's not a matter of wear them evenly coz How many thousand times u hit 2nd gear vs 6th?

Anyway. I'm not a tranny guru but I believe that Syncros are meant to SYNCRONIZE the shifting.
Said that each synchro will "expect" a certain gear at some range of rpms.

If you are in 2nd the synchro for 6th is not the same for 3rd, so you are pushing a gear that is not in that ' range'

If I need to skip a gear going up, I usually tap the accel pedal for a bit of rpms and then shift in.
Ppl call this rev match and is mostly used when downshifting.

This is what I do. I might be wrong, but as I stated I'm not a tranny guru.

cdelena

At high rpm there is a mismatch of syncro/gear speeds when skipping gears that could cause damage... but at lower rpm (less than 5K) there is no harm.

mad pup

I don't normally skip gears, but when I do, I double clutch.

zeroptzero

I know there is one member on here that continually cautions against this, I think in certain conditions it could be hard on the synchros.

But sometimes it just seems to make sense for me to go from 4th gear to 6th gear as I change from acceleration to cruising mode. Sometimes I'll do it if the topography changes from flat to downhill, or just when I ease into light cruising mode. I wouldn't do it with high rpms while accelerating though as the synchros will be affected more. I also do it as a slower lazy shift pausing a split second in neutral.

I think it would be worse if your doing it at high rpms and under hard acceleration with fast shifts. If you do it at lower rpms, lower load, and slower shifting you shouldn't harm much. Besides I probably only do it once a day at most in certain conditions.

emac0408

I probably heard this from a post from the same member you're talking about. I don't remember though...

I pretty much do the same as you. After reading the warnings against skipping gears, I shift out of the gear (2nd, 3rd, or 4th) and coast for a bit, then push the clutch in, wait a couple seconds, shift into 6th, rev match, and let out the clutch.

If i need more power immediately, say, downshifting from 6th to 4th, I quickly throw it into 5th, then into 4th, and let out the clutch. It seems like this would help the syncros pass from 6th to 4th.

buzz944

correct me if im wrong, but i know that the Syncros can be damaged if you skipped gears

krikke_s2000

i'am skipping gears for almost 5 years no problems here
thats where syncros are for
grtz kristof

deathsled

There was a thread about this once, something to the effect of certain gears or synchros sharing the same shafts (like 2 and 4, 3 and 5 for example), and by skipping gears you aren't changing shafts and because of that the synchros are forced to work extra hard to do their job and will wear out faster. It was said that you CAN skip gears, but make sure to put the lever in and out of that gear as you skip to the next one (you don't have to let out the clutch), and it will give the synchros time to do their job.