Subaru cars not designed for downshifting?

[Guest]

That being the case why did Subaru eliminate the door locks?

Being conservative I wouldn't be buying a vehicle with only the power
locks, without at least one manual key lock.
Another problem I've had with some newer design rental cars is no way to
lock the doors from inside the drivers door before closing it.

 

[Guest]

From time to time I have had a problem downshifting from 5th to 4th on my 05
LGT, even with the clutch fully depressed.
I mentioned this to the Subaru Dealers' service advisor and he told me that
Subarus were not designed to be downshifted, and that the owner's manual
refers to that.

Hopefully there is another dealer near you, because you need one!

 

[Tom Reingold]

Being conservative I wouldn't be buying a vehicle with only the power
locks, without at least one manual key lock.
Another problem I've had with some newer design rental cars is no way to
lock the doors from inside the drivers door before closing it.

That's so you can't lock yourself out. It's an excellent feature in my view.

 

[Edward Hayes]

Not unusual on most cars I've owned (Saab, Volvo,etc) It happens
because the syncroes (sp) will rarely not line-up. Easy solution is to
, clutch out to get the transmission shafts spinning at a different
rate and then try again. Takes me about 1/2 second on the rare times
it happens. Usually the issue is more pronounced when the car is
fairly new like under 15,000 miles. Just my experience and
observations with my vehicles. I don't view this as an issue unless it
is very frequent. ed

 

[Victor Roberts]

Being conservative I wouldn't be buying a vehicle with only the power
locks, without at least one manual key lock.
Another problem I've had with some newer design rental cars is no way to
lock the doors from inside the drivers door before closing it.

I agree with Tom. Preventing the driver's door from being
locked before it is closed is a great feature that is
designed to prevent people from locking their keys in the
car by mistake. While you may not like this feature on your
personal car, it is clear why rental car companies prefer
it.

 

[k. ote]

That's interesting, never thought of double-clutching. What's the proper
technique for that? Just clutch, put it into neutral, take your foot off
the clutch and then put it all the way back in again, and then put it
into first?

Yousuf Khan

Double-clutching instead of rev-matching is apparently only useful to reduce
weight transfer when racing with modern vehicles, and even then the
difference between double-clutching and simple rev-matching is very, very
slight (difficult to feel!)

Since rev-matching is easier anyway (requires fewer presses/depresses of the
clutch) you should concentrate on that instead;

.. Clutch down
.. Blip accelerator slightly (add another 1k or 1.5k to rpm)
.. Downshift after the blip
.. Clutch up, with foot just slightly on accelerator to maintain rpm

Doing this will allow you to downshift (easiest to do it one gear at a time
until you're good) right to 2nd gear. On my STi, the only way I can
downshift right to 1st is by doing a full double-clutch:

.. Clutch down
.. Shift to neutral
.. Clutch up
.. Blip accelerator (add 1.5-2K (or more) to rpm)
.. Clutch down
.. Shift to 1st
.. Clutch up

.... without doing the above, the shifter flat-out refuses to shift to 1st
gear, which I suppose makes sense given the massive ratio difference
between 1st and 2nd gears on my STi.