Gear shifting with diesel

[en13]

oh wow!!!! engine braking?

omg you are like the king.

hahah i might change my mechanic after what you've said!

i had absolutely no idea about not running the tank down, THANKS! i refuel when the light flashes and i was actually toying with the idea that i should just all the way down to 0, cos that's what i did with my previous car. but now that i know.... geez.

now here's another dumb question from me- please define engine breaking. wiki says that it means clutch down. no one else says this. what i've thought is engine braking is- clutch down, press brakes, slow release clutch.
am i correct?

we really need a forum for manual drivers who have driven auto cars for too long...

The notion that a diesel engined car should be driven like a petrol-fuelled otto engined car is bad advice. Change your mechanic immediately!

And that means that for a driver in a TDI, you should only use the footbrake for fools, red lights, and authority figures (who may or may not be fools). Instead, a TDI driver should use engine braking to slow the vehicle down (and touch the brake pedal so the red lights at the rear glow).


4. Fuel
Put those two together and operators of diesel engines should avoid letting the fuel tank get below 1/3 full. The fuel tank accepts heated fuel returned from the injectors. If the fuel quantity in the tank is low, then the average temperature of the fuel in the tank gets higher.

That means you should avoid the practice that some petrol engine drivers have of running the fuel tank close to empty. If you want to keep fuel consumption records, do it using the MFD reading or (even more accurate) keep a log of distance travelled and fuel supplied - and don't talk about kilometres per tank.

Keeping the fuel tank full or fairly full with a diesel does not run the risk of leaks from the fuel filler cap, due to fuel expansion on a hot day, that a petrol vehicle does. Keeping the fuel tank full is a good practice because it diminishes the chances of water condensing in the tank because of overnight cooling.

Note that diesel fuel has traditionally not been treated as cleanly in the refinery-wholesale distributor-retailer pipeline as petrol has. That means the chance that you buy diesel fuel that is dirty and/or may contain water is higher than for buyers of petrol. Note also that diesel fuel (and petrol) is made to be used in a few months - it does not have a long shelf life.

That means that you should patronise fuel retailers that have clean underground tanks and have a good turnover of fuel (ie they sell a lot of diesel fuel). In addition, some brands of diesel fuel (including BP) have a reputation for being cleaner and more carefully blended than others. BP led the way in Australia to lower sulfur diesel fuel (and are continuing to lead the way to even lower sulfur fuel, depending on where you live - check the BP website). BP is also one of the few refiners/retailers to state transparently on their website the cetane rating, lubricity etc of their fuel.

Cheers

[en13]

Engine braking is using the engine to slow the vehicle down. That means right foot off the throttle, left foot off the clutch. The instantaneous fuel consumption on a TDI read 0.0 L/100 km. In other words, slow down *in gear*.

ohhhh... so basically I'm have to let the car slow down without pressing on anything. wouldn't it stall!?

If you need to increase the rate of deceleration, change down a gear (ie from 5 to 4, 4 to 3, 3 to 2). And get the left foot off the clutch pedal.

After changing down a gear, you may need to increase the engine speed as you let out the clutch, to match the speed of engine to the speed of the road wheels. That doesn't necessarily mean letting out the clutch slowly - it usually means a touch of throttle as you let out the clutch at your usual speed for doing so.

yes!!! this is what i do.. so i don't actually know if that's considered engine braking. that's for clarifying that...

In stop/start city traffic, you might find that you can spend a lot of time in 2nd or 3rd gear, accelerating for a while and then getting your foot off the throttle and letting the engine braking slow you down. Judging how long to accelerate before easing off the throttle is one of the arts of driving a diesel engined vehicle in such traffic.

Okay now that is too complicated, I'm just going to stick to the basics. hahaha

Engine breaking, on the other hand, for a TDI is any of a number of bad habits, including babying the engine, idling the engine, using the wrong oil, using the wrong fuel, riding the clutch (although that will lead to clutch breaking, not engine breaking) etc.

yes, i've also been riding the clutch! yay! now i know the term... basically I clutch down fully and brake... oh that's bad yeah. okay, this is like learning driving all over

i have to say, i love the boost from the TDi... even though it's a 1.9, it's still heaps more powerful than what i've ever been in!
Thanks mate!

[Logzy]

we really need a forum for manual drivers who have driven auto cars for too long...

Why dont you just go and get a driving lesson.???