P & M session

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by zeno

With manuals I almost always started in 2nd. Only time for 1st was
when you were doing comparative driving or a smoke show.

Originally Posted by mr_rye89

Kinda late here, But I have a 1990 Dodge w250 with an NP435 granny 4 (and likely 4:10 gears in the diffs) and I never take off out of first unless I'm ripping small trees out of the ground.

Whatever floats your gears blokes.

There's a series of videos on YouTube of a school bus that was refitted with a 5-speed main and a 4-speed auxiliary. The two guys I saw drive it took off in second/low except for when demonstrating granny low and later on pulling out a badly stuck 4x4.

A car we used to have had a really wide gap between third and fourth, the latter only being used at highway speeds. I suppose one's level of satisfaction with 4-speeds depends on whether or not fourth is an overdrive.

Early on when I was practicing on a manual, that particular car was tricky to get into low so I accidentally ended up in third a couple of times. Once I actually succeeded in taking off in third which really bogged down the engine as I had pulled onto an incline. Once I realized what happened I made the mistake of downshifting all the way into low; the engine roared and when I shifted back in second the tires screeched a bit, prompting a chuckle from the guy who owned the car. Nevertheless, even then I was better at driving a manual than Captain Kirk.