How and When to Change Gears - Gear Changing Driving Tips

Hey guys this is Pin Binning at DGN Driving School. Welcome to another video and in this video we're going to go through gears. How and when to change gears. Firstly I'll show you how to change the gears and once we've done that I'll move the car and show you when to change the gears. So when I say when to change the gears I'm just going to move the car go from gear one two to three and then pull up on the left. We won't be going through changing gears, atom, turns, roundabouts and stuff like that. That'll be done in different videos. Remember guys don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel so you get instant notifications of when the next videos are uploaded. So remember whenever you change a gear always make sure that the clutch pedal, that's his left pedal, is fully down. So if you look at the diagram on top of the gear stick it tells you which gear is where. So at the moment we're in neutral which is in between gear three and four. You can tell it's in neutral as the gear will easily go from right to left and that's how you can tell it's in neutral. Gear one is in the top left corner and when you want to select gear one put your palm to the right hand side of the gear stick so you can easily push it to the left first and then up and that's gear one. Gear two is towards the bottom left so it's in the same line as gear one. So if you put your palm in the same position force the gear lever slightly to the left and then push it straight down and that goes into gear two. Now getting gear three from gear two there's a couple of ways that instructors teach this. One way is selecting neutral first and then from neutral gear three is straight up so you can do it that way or the other way you can do it if I select gear two again is if you just place your palm in the corner so bottom left corner there and just push it up in one movement that goes into gear three as well. So the two ways one is into the middle then up or you could just place your palm here and in one movement push it up and that goes into gear three and when selecting gear four from gear three it's just straight down so palm on the top straight down and that goes into gear four. Now getting gear five that's towards the top right so we need to put it into the middle first back into neutral then push it towards the right and then up that's gear five. This car has got six gears so the sixth gear is in the same line as gear five where it's towards the bottom bottom right so again palm towards you and then just straight down and that goes into gear six. The reverse gear will be different in each car in this car it's very similar to gear one towards the top left there is a safety button here which you pull up and that enables the gear stick to go more over to the left and then you push it up now that's in reverse. Now let's go through when to change the gears whilst you're moving and stopping the car. So if I start the car you can see the dials at the front and these will help you with the timing of the gear change obviously you don't want to be staring down at these dials your main focus should be ahead but I'll show you how these can help you with the timing of the gear changes. So we have the rev counter on the left so if I gently press the accelerator you can see the needle going up and then you have the speedometer on the right hand side but in this car you've got a digital speedometer in the centre which is quite handy. Normally when I ask people how they know it's time to change into the next gear when changing up into gears I always get the answer that they listen to the engine noise which is kind of correct but I find that when people listen to the engine noise their gear change is always late which is not good for the engine and it wastes more fuel. So firstly let me show you how not to change your gears so I'll be changing the gears quite late here when I'm changing from one two two three. So let's get my belt on I'm going to be moving off now so I'm in gear one at the moment and now this is quite late you can hear the engine noise you can see I've gone to 3,000 revs and also nearly 20 miles an hour I'm getting gear two and that was not very good for the car and waste a lot more fuel even here now I should have really been in gear three and even this is quite late now I'll get gear three and I find a lot of people always changing their gears like this and I think it's okay and when they're pulling up so I'm going to park up here now I see a lot of people going down from gear I'm in gear three now so go to two then they'll go to one and then they'll go into neutral there's no need to rush down from gear three two to one because we're just stopping the car so when we're into gear two gear one pretty pointless because we're not using those gears yeah because we've just parked up here so we just need neutral now let's show you how to change the gears correctly so what I use here use a rev counter use a speedometer so in this car this is a 1.4 diesel engine in this car when I reach 10 miles an hour so when I move off in gear one and I reach 10 miles an hour it's time for gear two when I reach 20 miles an hour time for gear three when I reach 30 then I can go into gear four this speed will not be the same in every car I see cars with bigger engines you can change the gear a bit later smaller engines change to get a bit sooner but the thing that does work in most cars is a rev counter so when you reach around 2,000 revs it's time for your next gear change you'll see when I get to 2,000 revs my speed will be just as I mentioned earlier for the gear changes so let's move off now and show you how to change the gears at the correct time so here I'm in gear one you can see I'm just reaching 2,000 revs and 10 miles an hour so I'm going to go into gear two revs again and 20 miles an hour and that's how you can tell when to change your gears so now I'm driving in gear three I'm going to park up on the left so I won't need to change any gears now I'll slow down with the foot brake I'll put the clutch fully down which cancels any gear changes I'm still in gear three once I've stopped the car now I can just select neutral as I've just parked up and that's how you change your gears correctly remember the gear changing on hills will be different when you're driving uphill the gear changes are always a bit later I will definitely go through that in another video so guys if you found that video useful please do not forget to like and subscribe thanks a lot see you next time