How to Avoid Downshifting on a Manual Transmission

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Casey Atkinson with Willie Driving School here in Logan, Utah. I'm going to talk to you a little bit about down shifting. Now down shifting is when you want to slow down without using your brakes. So basically you just shift it down for like sixth to fifth for example. Now when you do this it's not really that great for your transmission and it's also unsafe. For example, if you shift down really fast and there's cars behind you, if you're slowing down really suddenly, they might not have time to stop and they could slam into the back of you. A way to avoid this is you know, use the brakes or if you want to, shift into neutral and then use the brakes. But be extra careful; if you do have to down shift, make sure of course, there's no cars as we've talked about behind you, but also don't shift down to the first gear 'cause they give the car quite a jerk and it's not great for your transmission."