Looking to get a Subaru Impreza Wagon. Seeking Advice.

[Michael Pardee]

How do you figure? I've seen people avoid their brakes as much as possible
and do nearly all their braking by declutching, letting the engine spin
down, and then clutching slowly, to maximize braking. Some of that energy
has to go to wear.

Doing that is just plain wrong. People who do that or otherwise abuse their
clutch should expect rapid clutch wear just as people who ride their brakes
while driving should expect rapid brake wear.

It's simple enough; select a proper gear, slow down by applying brakes a
bit, speed up by pressing the accelerator a bit. If the grade changes a
bunch, select the proper gear again.

Mike

 

[gpatmac]

I wasn't trying to start a cage match. Maybe I am trying to engage my Ron
Fellows fantasies too often and act like a very low speed race car driver,
but I do practice rev-matching. To be honest, being that I've got the 2001
DOHC 2.5l EJ251, I worry more about my valvetrain than anything.

 

[KLS]

Doing that is just plain wrong. People who do that or otherwise abuse their
clutch should expect rapid clutch wear just as people who ride their brakes
while driving should expect rapid brake wear.

The process of engine braking has many nuances, as skilled drivers
know. Good engine braking involves rev-matching and appropriate use
of brakes as well; this is how I always drive, and I have never
replaced a clutch in more than 200,000 miles of standard transmission
driving. My current A4 has 92,000 miles on the factory clutch and
feels perfectly fine.

 

[Tom Reingold]

Huh. I largely avoid using my brakes, but I engine brake by throttling a
bit to rev-match as I downshift, then while the engine is fully engaged
in the lower gear (clutch pedal not pressed) I slow down by reducing the
throttle I'd used to rev-match for the downshift. When there's so little
throttle that the rpm is low enough I rev-match and downshift again.
Rinse and repeat. No need to use the clutch any more than you would for
upshifting and accelerating; it's just the same process reversed. I
consider what I do to be engine braking, but there's no slow clutching
involved: that sounds like a dreadful idea!

-- Mark

OK, I see what you're saying. What's the benefit of all this effort?

 

[Kyle]

There is not a direct benefit to daily driving, however, rev-matching
and downshifting to slow the vehicle in preparation for a corner allow
the driver the ability to keep the engine revs up, thus keeping the
turbo spooled and the boost up. While cornering this allows the driver
to exert more control over the line of the turn by using the throttle
in conjunction with the steering wheel. It also allows access to more
power when exiting the turn, allowing for quicker acceleration. So,
although not practical for getting to work and back on dry days, there
is a benefit to the technique for getting maximum performance out of
the car. It can also be used at lower speeds in lower traction
conditions to help maintain control of the car. This can be
particularly helpful in snow where the use of the brakes could result
in easily locked tires.

Kyle

 

[Edward Hayes]

For daily driving it sounds like a dumber than dumb idea for
exchanging transmission & clutch wear for brake pads. However; if used
to obtain maximum velocity for conerering as in track racing I see
good. JMO

 

[Mark T.B. Carroll]

For daily driving it sounds like a dumber than dumb idea for
exchanging transmission & clutch wear for brake pads. However; if used
to obtain maximum velocity for conerering as in track racing I see
good. JMO

Just braking will, once you've slowed down a bit, leave you in a
situation where you can't jump out of trouble (or around someone who
cuts in front at the last minute (- by putting your foot down because
the revs would be wrong - you'd first have to choose and engage an
appropriate gear. By staying fully engaged in an appropriate gear and
using engine braking, I leave more options open for dealing with the
unexpected: I can accelerate hard /immediately/, and my brakes are cool
for if I need to brake hard (admittedly, I've never felt brake fade in
my STi anyway).

That may not often be useful - I'm pretty cautious and risk-averse, so I
plan for low-probability contingencies - but I don't go through clutches
and transmissions strikingly quickly so the price can't be that bad.
Also, in Britain everybody seems to be /taught/ to use engine braking as
much as possible, brakes as little as possible, and not to be driving in
neutral, so a comparison of national vehicle maintenance statistics
might be instructive? (We're visiting Britain next month, renting a
Renault(!), so I get to re-read their driving advice to know what to
expect/do.)

I've heard that steering response can be worse when the car isn't in
gear, but I don't know how true that is. Does that make any sense to
anyone?

-- Mark

 

[KLS]

You, Edward, clearly have no clue how to drive to the maximum
capabilities of your manual transmission car. Do yourself and
everyone else a favor and buy an automatic transmission in your next
car.

Just braking will, once you've slowed down a bit, leave you in a
situation where you can't jump out of trouble (or around someone who
cuts in front at the last minute (- by putting your foot down because
the revs would be wrong - you'd first have to choose and engage an
appropriate gear. By staying fully engaged in an appropriate gear and
using engine braking, I leave more options open for dealing with the
unexpected: I can accelerate hard /immediately/, and my brakes are cool
for if I need to brake hard (admittedly, I've never felt brake fade in
my STi anyway).

This is what those of us intend to achieve by engine braking, Edward.
Got it? We're safety and performance first, unlike you, evidently.

I learned engine braking from my mother, who was born in 1933 and
while not exactly being a Shirley Muldowney type was in her heyday a
practicioner of driving cars as they were meant to be driven. Today
is a different story, though, now that she's older: she drives a 2005
automatic transmission Subaru Outback, and this car suits her needs
and habits perfectly after many years of German manual transmission
cars (Audi, Mercedes, Volkswagen).

Daily driving, Edward, often (if not usually) presents surprises and
challenges that are best met by keeping your car/transmission in the
correct gear at all times. The brakes are the final element of this
system.

 

[Edward Hayes]

Now that you've done your ranting as a self appointed expert let us
move on. You might be interested in this tidbit. When I was racing
Porsches 911s in 1976 we/I always used engine braking when appropriate
as when coming to a sharp decreasing radius turn after a 140+ mph
straight. We were taught by Porsche to use engine braking ONLY so as
to not overheat the brakes. Where did you go to drivers school expert?

 

[Carl 1 Lucky Texan]

KLS wrote:----------------snip-----------------

Daily driving, Edward, often (if not usually) presents surprises and
challenges that are best met by keeping your car/transmission in the
correct gear at all times. The brakes are the final element of this
system.

I disagree (unless you meant daily RACE driving). I feel most (no, not
all) 'SURPRISES and CHALLENGES' encountered in 'daily driving' would
require brakes to be the primary and usually first element utilized. I
would not use engine braking to assist in avoiding debris suddenly
encountered on the highway, holding the vehicle on a hill or coming to a
quick stop when surprised by a kid chasing a ball into the street.
Engine braking is occasionally useful for the predictable and mundane.

Carl

 

[Mark T.B. Carroll]

I disagree (unless you meant daily RACE driving). I feel most (no, not all)
'SURPRISES and CHALLENGES' encountered in 'daily driving' would require brakes
to be the primary and usually first element utilized. I would not use engine
braking to assist in avoiding debris suddenly encountered on the highway,
holding the vehicle on a hill or coming to a quick stop when surprised by a
kid chasing a ball into the street. Engine braking is occasionally useful for
the predictable and mundane.

I think you're missing the point. Engine braking is a useful add-on to
the regular brakes, which is why for an emergency stop you should
release the throttle and brake immediately but not push the clutch down
until the revs are lower, but if you've not been using your brakes much
in regular driving then they'll be cool for when you /do/ need them.

But, more importantly, sometimes the surprise/challenge is best evaded
by accelerating. For instance, if something's unexpectedly coming right
at you and your escape route is ahead, not behind, because you're
blocked by other traffic or whatever behind, then the couple of seconds
you gain from already being in an appropriate gear might be what lets
you get ahead to the gap that's out of the way of the collision with the
sudden idiot.

For instance, if you've been slowing to take a sharp exit ramp, you're
being tailgated so you can't brake too much without maybe being
rear-ended, and some jerk merging from the entry ramp just before it
doesn't look like he's about to yield, you can then shoot ahead of him
to get to the exit ramp soon enough to make it over ahead of him.
(Though, these entry ramps quickly followed by exit ramps on some
cities' freeways are a recipe for disaster anyway - nothing like forcing
rapid lane changes at high speed!) Similarly, when you're slowing to
take an exit ramp, and some fast idiot pulls over behind you because he
misjudged your speed and didn't see the exit ramp in time, you can
quickly increase speed so they don't rear-end you.

Broadly, I tend to use the throttle when I've more traffic close behind
me than ahead of me, and I want to get out of the way onto clearer
roadspace from some unexpected idiot coming at me from another direction
- part of the point of having an STi is that the power allows you to do
some things you couldn't otherwise do. Except, you can only immediately
accelerate if you were already in the correct gear.

For this reason, when there's dense traffic changing lanes, etc., I'll
tend to be in a gear that puts the engine at higher revs than if I were
just cruising on an empty road, so that (adjusting for my inertial frame
of reference) I can reach road ahead of me as well as behind me at short
notice, in case that's where the path of greatest safety suddenly lies.
It's all about keeping more options open. But, if you're in the correct
gear, then you can use engine braking for free so, hey, why not?

So, I use engine braking extensively because I've /already/ paid the
price for it in the gear shifting I did to keep more evasive-maneuver
options open to myself. But, maybe Ohio drivers are particularly bad.

-- Mark

 

[KLS]

I think you're missing the point. Engine braking is a useful add-on to
the regular brakes, which is why for an emergency stop you should
release the throttle and brake immediately but not push the clutch down
until the revs are lower, but if you've not been using your brakes much
in regular driving then they'll be cool for when you /do/ need them.

Indeed. I try to keep my car in the "correct" gear for the situation
so that I have all my options available, including acceleration as
needed.

 

[Carl 1 Lucky Texan]

Indeed. I try to keep my car in the "correct" gear for the situation
so that I have all my options available, including acceleration as
needed.

maintaining the correct gear for a given driving condition is hardly the
same as downshifting repeatedly to engine brake INSTEAD of using the the
brakes which is, I believe, the heart of the contention here. They both
obviously work for some people so do whatever you're comfortable with.
Anyway, someone else can have the last word.

Carl

 

[Mark T.B. Carroll]

maintaining the correct gear for a given driving condition is hardly the same
as downshifting repeatedly to engine brake INSTEAD of using the the brakes
which is, I believe, the heart of the contention here. They both obviously

(snip)

When you're partway through slowing down, if you've not been
downshifting then you're /not/ in the correct gear for the driving
condition. That's part of the objection!

Nobody said categorically that you must never use the brakes at all
during slowing down: the objection instead was to using your brakes more
than necessary, with the engine disengaged from the wheels. Sometimes
the engine braking alone won't slow you down fast enough, even if you
don't follow the guy ahead of you very closely, so then you have to use
your brakes a bit.

So, sure, I bet that most of us here use our brakes in daily driving,
that's why I limited myself to saying that I try to minimise their use
and I don't slow down with /just/ my brakes. The idea of never using
brakes whatsoever in routine driving is a strawman. The point is more
that if you've got engine braking available for free (which you do if
you're already keeping your maneuver options open by being in the
correct gear for the driving condition) then you should use it, only
using your brakes more as last resort, so that you can keep them cool
and less worn.

-- Mark

 

[Theodrake]

But, more importantly, sometimes the surprise/challenge is best evaded
by accelerating. For instance, if something's unexpectedly coming right
at you and your escape route is ahead, not behind, because you're
blocked by other traffic or whatever behind, then the couple of seconds
you gain from already being in an appropriate gear might be what lets
you get ahead to the gap that's out of the way of the collision with the
sudden idiot.

For instance, if you've been slowing to take a sharp exit ramp, you're
being tailgated so you can't brake too much without maybe being
rear-ended, and some jerk merging from the entry ramp just before it
doesn't look like he's about to yield, you can then shoot ahead of him
to get to the exit ramp soon enough to make it over ahead of him.
(Though, these entry ramps quickly followed by exit ramps on some
cities' freeways are a recipe for disaster anyway - nothing like forcing
rapid lane changes at high speed!) Similarly, when you're slowing to
take an exit ramp, and some fast idiot pulls over behind you because he
misjudged your speed and didn't see the exit ramp in time, you can
quickly increase speed so they don't rear-end you.

I firmly believe that accelerating to avoid is the worse answer to
almost all situations. It has always been my impression that the car
exiting and overtaking a slower car entering a controlled access highway
should slow down enough to come in behind that vehicle. What if that
jerk is someone driving a nice 300 HP STi. He may suddenly hit it and
accelerate, at best you are now beside him. You miss your exit and he
just takes the offramp and comes around again to get back on the
highway. You now have to wait for the next exit. At worse you pull into
him and have to hope that it looks more like their fault instead of yours.

By the way I know this works cause I've done this with my old GTI. I
lived in Huntsville, AL where jerks in big ol pickups would deliberately
make this kind of manuver as people attempted to merge on to the
parkway. It suddenly dawned on me that I could just miss this on ramp
and take the next one, while the blocking the jerk from exiting. I
always made sure the jerk was ahead of me by the next on ramp, didn't
want to play chicken with the rednecks.

 

[Theodrake]

The process of engine braking has many nuances, as skilled drivers
know. Good engine braking involves rev-matching and appropriate use
of brakes as well; this is how I always drive, and I have never
replaced a clutch in more than 200,000 miles of standard transmission
driving. My current A4 has 92,000 miles on the factory clutch and
feels perfectly fine.

Having just got a '02 WRX and having had a '85 GTI, I did a lot of
slowing down with just 2nd and 3rd gears in my GTI with that 10.5:1
compression. But it just seems to me that the WRX with the lower
compression doesn't slow down as fast.

But I've got to say in my freeway driving in LA, I stopped using engine
braking because too many people in rush hour traffic are expecting brake
lights to give them a clue you are slowing down. The suddenly slowing
down GTI in front of them seemed to confuse them.

So I'm not saying don't use engine braking, but think about when and
where you use it.

 

[Mark T.B. Carroll]

[ what if the guy coming in off the exit ramp throttles hard? ]

In wondering why our experience is so different, I wonder if the issue
is that when I'm coming to exit over a short change-over ramp, I'm
already slower, so the impatient people in their shiny cars are already
going way faster than me to enter the freeway so there isn't a
"blocking" problem. If they're already showing signs of impatience, like
accelerating fairly hard on the entry ramp, I'm quite happy to slot in
behind them.

I don't think I've ever accelerated such that someone at the same speed
as me beside me has had time to react fast enough to stop me moving over
- it just doesn't seem to happen. Whatever they're driving, the head
start I get in acceleration while they're reacting turns out to be
enough. Probably because if they're going as slow at that late entry
stage as I am to exit, they're not racer types anyway.

(snip)

At worse you pull into him and have to hope that it looks more like
their fault instead of yours.

Well, that'd be a dumb thing to do.

By the way I know this works cause I've done this with my old GTI. I
lived in Huntsville, AL where jerks in big ol pickups would
deliberately make this kind of manuver as people attempted to merge on
to the parkway.

(snip)

The point of the maneuver is to get out of the way of people who are
attempting to merge. I tend to find that they don't object to me doing
so! If they wanted to get ahead and they have a powerful car, they'd
already have done so and I'd have been happy to slot in behind them -
it's not like I'm normally also trying to exit as fast as I can.

Certainly I've never come close to having any problems doing what I
suggest - I can't even remember the last time someone did try to match
my acceleration, let alone came close to actually stopping me moving
over. But, if they did seem keen to, I can still brake and come in
behind them - they probably now made a nice gap for me, and that would
bring me back down to the speed I wanted to be at in the first place.

-- Mark

 

[Theodrake]

Certainly I've never come close to having any problems doing what I
suggest - I can't even remember the last time someone did try to match
my acceleration, let alone came close to actually stopping me moving
over. But, if they did seem keen to, I can still brake and come in
behind them - they probably now made a nice gap for me, and that would
bring me back down to the speed I wanted to be at in the first place.

I'm guessing I misunderstood your original proposition. Its just been my
experience that most drivers doing this just don't want to slow down to
a safe exit speed.

 

[Mark T.B. Carroll]

I'm guessing I misunderstood your original proposition. Its just been
my experience that most drivers doing this just don't want to slow
down to a safe exit speed.

Ah, right, yes, that could indeed cause trouble and anger! It's probably
good that you encouraged me to clarify what I meant.

-- Mark