Skipping 5th Gear
 

Is it bad on the tranny to skip 5th gear. I find myself going from 4th to 6th very often. I get on the freeway onramp, take 1st to about 25, second to about 45, 3rd to about 60 and 4th to 75ish, then after a few I go to 6th for cruising. Is that bad?

No, not bad at all.

I do that all the time and no problems. By going to 5th when you don't need it you just use more fuel. I wouldn't worry about it.

I am told that skipping gears, either on the upshift or downshift, is hard on the synchronizers. I always shift sequentially, even if that does not involve increasing speed. For instance, in the example given, I would shift into fifth at 75, and then into sixth, without having accelerated in fifth.

I don't know if this is correct, but it makes sense to me, and shifting in my car is so much fun that I enjoy the extra shifts.

i do that every single day, all the time. I barely use fifth. It's not hard on the synchros, it just wears more on the gears you use more.

It's your car, so be my guest.

Well, i'm glad i'm not the only one that does this.

I've gone from 1st to 3rd, 1st to 4th, skip 5th all the time, the tranny never acts like the syncros are unhappy, and when you're just cruising around there's no reason to use them all in my opinion. I suppose just going in and out of the gear to be skipped all at once is sorta the same thing, but I just assume go to the gear I want to be in.

I regularly skip 3rd and 5th, mostly on upchanges though. Occasionally I'll go 6th to 4th. Doesn't harm the box at all.

Theoretically, it could be a little harder on the synchros as a bigger gear jump would leave them with more work to do... however, if you shift slower when skipping a gear or two, and let the revs drop to where they should be, there'd be no harm at all that I could think of.

Perfectly normal.

Fifth gear on the RX-8 only comes into its own on a long stretch of 45-50 mph or on a freeway pulling up a long grade. On 35 mph roads (about town), you don't get up to 5th. On freeway it is just as you say; accelerate to speed and then put it into 6th gear. This usually means skipping 5th. I'll occasionally drop to 5th for passing but sometimes 4th. So I'm also one of those folks who doesn't use 5th gear much. Out of the 5000 miles I have so far, I'd be surprised if any more than 20 of them were in fifth gear.

Nothing wrong with it at all... I go from 4th to 6th and 3rd to 6th (and vice versa to pass someone) all the time. Just rev-match on the downshifts to take it easy on the clutch if you go from 6th to 3rd...

you are correct. but since skipping gears usually requires a slower movement of the shifter, the revs drop more in accordance. skipping gears doesnt wear synchros anymore than normal shifting does.

Don't know who told you that, but they sure don't know what they're talking about.

Bill

I am inclined to believe that not much harm can come of skipping gears, if the driver is careful about rev-matching. Since I know that I often will not be careful about rev-matching on the upshift, and since downshifting one gear at a time is important on the track (for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is to lessen the chance of over-revving the engine on downshift, when driving at close to redline and braking into a sharp turn), I will continue to shift one gear at a time on the street, to avoid bad habits. Transmissions are complex and expensive to fix; if I can be a little kinder to my transmission by shifting one gear at a time (and have a lot of fun doing it :p ), I'm happy to do so.

To each his own.

Rev matching is the key. I always know where the engine needs to be when I shift. I occasionally over-rev on a downshift but never by more than a few hundred RPM. I downshift from 6->4 a lot. I've even done 6->2 before.

A couple of times a month, some hot shot on the S2k board tells a sob story about either missing a gate on a downshift, or skipping gears when not being careful about revs, and he's wrecked his engine over-revving it. Rotary engines are not as easy to wreck by over-revving, but piston engines are very easy to wreck that way. I'd rather be safe, and it is good practice for me in heel/toe to downshift sequentially.

And did I say how much fun my transmission is, so it's a pleasure shifiting anyway? :D

There's a big difference in saying that you prefer to shift that way, and saying that skipping a gear will cause unnecessary wear on the synchronizers. Pick an argument and stick with it, would 'ya?

Bill

Think of it this way -- a standard car tranny used to have 3 forward gears. So going from 4th to 6th really isn't "skipping" anything at all. :)

Conversely, if the car had a 22-speed tranny would you feel obligated to visit each gear? :P

I do the 1-2-3-4-6

Chevy has been putting a 1-4 skip shift system into their V8's to conserve fuel for a GOOD long while now...so I don't think it will hurt the tranny at all.

You're a pleasant fellow, aren't you? It would be nice if you would read a post carefully before you bash the poster :rolleyes: , but apparently that's too difficult for you.

I believe that it is not a good idea to skip shift, either up or down. I believe that the synchros are designed for single gear shifts, and that skip-shifting inevitably will put extra wear on the synchros. I believe that the damage from skip shifting can be minimized by rev-matching (note, arrogant one, that, in the post you quoted, I said, "I am inclined to believe that not much harm can come of skipping gears, if the driver is careful about rev-matching;" the key words, for hard of reading, are "not much harm," which actually is not the same thing as "no harm"). I don't believe that, even with rev-matching, there is no damage done, over time, to the synchros from skip-shifting. Hence, I prefer not to skip-shift. You are free to skip-shift all you want.

Feel free to disagree; that's fine. However, please read my post carefully before bashing me for something I didn't even say.

One might consider that, in all probability, Chevrolet actually has designed the transmission so that the 1-4 skip shift will not cause any harm.

Again, feel free to shift any way you want, but don't conclude that, because GM has designed a skip-shift transmission for one of their cars (a low-revving one at that), skip-shifting in other cars is fine. One could more easily say that, because sequential manual transmissions (fine transmissions, by any measure) don't allow skip-shifitng, skip-shifting is a bad thing.

You're joking, right?

Depends on how the transmission is designed.

Why the flaming? If you are convinced that skip-shifting causes no damage, go ahead. I'm not convinced, so I won't.

it's got little to do with engine rpm...that difference is absorbed by the clutch. the synchros are there to match the input shaft speed to the output shaft speed. in gear with the clutch out everything but the motor is the same speed. if you depress the clutch, both shafts are still being spun by the driveshaft. when you take it out of gear, the low-inertia input shaft drops in speed very quickly and the longer the shifter is out of gear the lower it gets...so shifting slower when skipping gears will allow you to match revs without having to double clutch (revving the motor in neutral to bring the input shaft back up to speed).

...the less pressure required to engage the shifter into a given gear, the less wear youre subjecting the synchros to.

You're obviously free to believe whatever you wish, but in this case, what you believe is wrong. Not sure how else I can say that without offending your delicate sensitivities.

Bill