Tweakophyte

Hard fast rule... with rare exception.

1 no syncro gears
2 too much torque... will stress the whole transmission chain

At 2-3mph, you can easily take off from 2nd gear.

Technically, you can rpm match to your speed, but 1st is so low you're still likely to overly stress the drive chain, including rocking your engine back and forth off of engine mounts.

newmoon

I would leave it in 6th or 5th (whatever gear you were in) as you decelerate, until the engine reaches idle speed of around 800-1,000 rpm, then skip to 3rd gear and take that down to idle speed, which I think will be around 15 mph, then put it neutral and release the clutch.

If you need to accelerate before you stop, you can put it back in 2nd if the ratio will not put the engine below idle speed. If it will, the trick is you are already in neutral with the clutch out, so you've already done the first part of the double clutch technique. Then you just need to rev match for 1st gear (while still in neutral with the clutch out). Engine idle speed of 800 rpm is fine for around 6 mph so you don't have to rev at all. 1,500 rpm is needed for a road speed of around 10 mph. Then push the clutch in and it should go easily into 1st. If you feel resistance do not push harder because you did not do it right and you will wear out the synchro. Also, do not wait too long with the clutch in before putting it into 1st, or the input shaft speed will drop and you will negate the double clutch technique.

Tweakophyte

Why does he need to double-clutch?

newmoon

You double clutch to get it into 1st while rolling. You can actually downshift into 1st all the way up to ~35 mph by double clutching, but I don't recommend it because there will be a lot of engine braking force which will stress the whole drivetrain.

There are some situations where you are already rolling but 2nd gear is not low enough and the engine goes below idle speed and bogs down. You could leave it in 2nd and slip the clutch, but I don't like to do this because it wears the clutch. I would rather double clutch down to 1st.

Tweakophyte

The notion of double-clutching to get into 1st in these cars is pretty sophisticated, imo. I'd suggest the OP stick to the "never" rule.

By the way, why wouldn't you just rev match if you really wanted to downshift into 1st, i.e. why do you need to double-clutch vs just rev match?

For conversation, I used get a kick out of shifting my Scirocco without using the clutch... did it in my GTi, too.

helix139

IMO leave it in gear while moving and take advantage of engine braking. During engine braking your car is not burning any fuel, while it does burn some gas in neutral.

Take it out of gear while stopped. Simply holding the clutch in at a stop is hard on the throwout bearing.

newmoon

I agree, if anyone thinks double clutching is too complicated, then you should not shift into 1st while rolling.

You need to double clutch to spin up the lay shaft. On this webpage: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/transmission4.htm with the clutch out and in neutral, you are spinning up the red lay shaft and also all of the blue gears connected to it. If you just rev match with the clutch in, you are not spinning up these parts.

Usually for all the other gears 2-6, the synchros do this just fine without the need to double clutch, but because of the high ratio of first gear, the synchronizer inside the purple collar may not be strong enough to spin up the blue gear and red lay shaft by itself. So you feel like the gear stick does not go into 1st, or it goes in with a crunch. That's why you may need to double clutch to reduce the work on the 1st gear synchro.

Tweakophyte

Thanks for that link.

twentysevenlitres

All Audi's since the mid 90's use zero fuel whilst in gear off throttle. That's No fuel people!
In neutral you will use fuel, even if it's not much.

Keeping a manual in gear at all times is considered a safe driving technique.
All road authorities in Australia regard a car in motion in neutral as not being in control.
Sure, it's difficult to enforce, but anyone with any sort of enthusiasm for cars should try to drive to the best of their abilities. Leave poor technique to the idiots - there's plenty of them!

snagitseven

Agreed. That's what I wrote back in Post #20.