A DRIVING instructor has shared a “really helpful” tip to downshift smoothly in any manual car.
Richard Fanders from Conquer Driving revealed in a YouTube tutorial that many drivers make a basic error when changing gears which can easily be avoided.
In the clip, he explained that shifting down requires a change in technique to avoid jerking.
He said: “When you go up a gear, the difference in speed between the engine and the gears isn’t too great, so the clutch doesn’t have much work to do.
“But when you go down a gear, the difference between the gear speed and the engine speed is far greater.
“The job of the clutch is to match the speed between the engine and the gears.
“That’s why you can’t just come of the clutch quickly…you have to hold the clutch at the bite point until the revs have risen to where they need to be.”
Richard then cut to a split-screen clip of him testing the hack, with one shot showing his feet on the pedals and another showing his rev counter.
As he changed gear, he depressed the clutch pedal, causing the revs to drop sharply.
He then coasted along holding the clutch down (so effectively in neutral) while gently pressing the brake.
As he began to slow, he brought the clutch gently back up until he hit the “bite point”, meaning the point at which the gear cogs meet and begin to match speed.
The revs then began to rise rapidly and he held the clutch pedal at this point until they stopped their upward progress.
Only at that point did he fully release the clutch, completing a seamless gear change without any jolting or jerking.
This method allows the gears to speed match and heavily reduces the chance of slippage, where the gear cogs don’t line up properly, which is often felt in the form of violent jolting or even stalling.
Social media commenters loved the helpful tip.
One wrote: “This is very helpful, I’m looking forward to putting this into practice this week.”
Another added: “Really helpful videos.”
And a third said: “I learned rev matching from an older video of yours last year. Now it’s become a daily practice.”
