any concensus on what gear to leave the car in when parking?; i heard leaving in 1st was bad for tranny, so ive been leaving it in 2nd, and ive now heard that was bad;
any thoughts would be appreciated;

 

I leave it in neutral with just the parking brake. Works good since Florida is mostly flat.

 

sorry, i should also add, my parking is slighly downhill so i need to keep it in gear;

 

Leave it at 1 is fine...

 

I've always left my cars in first...never heard that was bad.

 

I think it can be bad for some cars that are extremely heavy. The idea is that you shouldn't put the cars weight on the transmission if it's on a hill. It's probably pretty safe to pull in to parking space, disengage clutch, pull parking brake, stop car, release clutch. This way the transmission is only a secondary means to stop the rolling of the car if the brake fails.

Some busses don't have a Park gear for this reason. The entire weight of the bus bouncing on the transmission could break it.

 

I have always used 1st gear. Makes it easy to visually confirm if you turn back to check. I second the idea of setting the parking brake first to take the load and use the tranny for the backup.

 

^^Same Here^^^

Pull in, stop, pull brake, release foot brake, let car settle, put into 1st for pointing up and reverse for pointing down, turn off car.

 

Not sure what it will do, but i've heard it was bad for the tranny as well. Might be an old wives tale but still, if you have too you might want to check into that.

 

I don't see how leaving the car in first can be any worse than normal driving.

 

It is NOT bad for the transmission to be left in gear when parking. As others have said, allow the car to settle/set with just the parking brake (i.e. release foot brake after setting the parking brake). Then put the car in gear (or just release the clutch if you already have it in gear as a result of parking) as a safety against the parking brake slipping.

You want to use a low gear when doing this (such as first) because that will provide the most resistance to rolling because it would have to push the engine faster than if you put it in a higher gear.