Race you?



Just a thought but did it have a Sport setting? This would make it hold a gear longer.

Personally, auto's are not for me but apparently they're great for towing (not my words). I still double de clutch yep true.

In my new car a part of the display tells me to change up if I'm doing more than about 2000 rpm

I took this as a fuel saving measure, I have to ignore it when towing the van.

Get as much fun as possible from your car.

Quote: Randa france wrote in post #4

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Quote: Frantone wrote in post #2

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Race you? Just a thought but did it have a Sport setting? This would make it hold a gear longer.

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Don't think it had a sports setting but the "Race You" comment is interesting.
Do you remember last year when I followed you for about 40 miles from St Palais to La Rochelle? You were quite surprised when I said that you were quicker off the mark and in lower gears than we were? Your Galaxy's automatic isn't it?
Randa

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if there are no growling noises from gear box or engine stalling your changing ok Randa

must admit our car seems to have more oomph (beans) since towing eriba.

This thought has just begun in my little brain. Our new car has the "Eco" feature and tells me when to change gear. It doesn't seem to agree with my idea of gear changing. Now I know I have always driven my cars quite hard, used to compete in road rallies as a youngster, and still like to get the most out of the car when I can. With all this DPF business I would have thought that the car needed driving harder than it seems to think it does. Why am I listening to an onboard computer??
Julie.
PS. Don't anyone tell Neil about this post, he drives more sedately than me (should that be I?) and wouldn't appreciate me thrashing the car!

I drive ours "normally" having used diesel in our cars since 1991 and in my case driving diesel vehicles since the 60's, I always let the torque do it's job. I learnt to drive in something with a 27l (yes 27 litre) petrol engine which came out of the Spitfire planes, it also had a crash gearbox. I owned our old Shogun for a week under 21 years and sold it with nearly 300k on the clock, still on it's original clutch. We had 2 other cars at the same time as the Shogun, a petrol Rav4 (towing) and in 2002 we bought a new Mini Cooper S petrol.

With the petrol engine vehicles I always had to rev them hard to get any performance out of them! The Rav was a bad choice on my part, but we stuck with it. I sold the Shogun and gave the Rav to our daughter and then bought our current car a 2l diesel.

SUPERB, I get 36 mpg + when towing 60 mpg + when solo. These days we only tour the UK and then we use our favourite sites, but on a fairly recent trip to Damage Barton, 136 miles from where we are, we arrived in under 3 hours, achieved the afore mentioned 36 mpg, and on the hilly road from jct 27 of the M5 only had to change out of 6th gear once to climb a hill, then it was only 5th gear, we did change down to descend hills but thats fairly normal for me.

Driving solo I seldom rev past 3000 rpm mostly 2000 or 2500, I don't need to rev any harder as I see vehicles disapearing in my rear view mirror, I drive fast on the motorway, but elsewhere I'm the one you all overtake as I'm sticking to the speed limit.

In essence, no need to rev a diesel engine hard (yet, newer engines are on the way with 10000rpm rev limiters) the torque will do the job for you

Well I've got the Touran same as you Roger so know where you're coming from. I've driven all manner of diesels over the years ranging from military trucks, commercial trucks, Fire Engines and a range of cars but the Touran is the first vehicle with a MFD indicating when you should change up.

In the beginning I used to look at this and compared it to my own changing technique but after a short while binned the idea as we couldn't agree LOL. The indication was ok on the flat and if you wanted to save fuel but present the car with a slight hill and you'd be up and down the gearbox like a lady of the streets knickers. I now rely purely on my own experience which, like you, having always treated my vehicles with respect, I don't think can be far off. Funnily enough, when doing a Police training course a while back after the preliminary run to see how hard his job was going to be, the Instructor said 'Um, I can see you've spent most of the time driving diesel cars LOL.

Anyway, with now having to take into consideration burning off all those nasty products of combustion (particles) I'm attempting, albeit reluctantley I admit, to stay in lower gears a touch longer in order to ensure that proper engine temperatures are attained and once attained, maintained. This results in slightly less mpg but if you look at the cost of a replacement DPF the extra fuel costs pale in comparison.

Quote: Deeps wrote in post #14

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Anyway, with now having to take into consideration burning off all those nasty products of combustion (particles) I'm attempting, albeit reluctantley I admit, to stay in lower gears a touch longer in order to ensure that proper engine temperatures are attained and once attained, maintained. This results in slightly less mpg but if you look at the cost of a replacement DPF the extra fuel costs pale in comparison.

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