1. So as to limit wear and tear on the transmission, should you basically never downshift, and let the system downshift on its own as it needs to? Assume you're just driving casually and not in a race where you need to maximize every millisecond.

2. At what RPM or speed do you generally shift up? I generally try to shift up if the car is doing 3,000 RPMs. So I'll usually switch out of 1st gear at 15-20 mph, and switch out of 2nd gear at 30 mph.

3. Does anyone know the meaning of the shift-point numbers in this document? It claims that you can go 44mph in 1st gear, and 68mph in 2nd gear. Can you really do that without damaging or putting excessive wear on the car?
http://media.caranddriver.com/files/...uar-f-type.pdf

 

I love downshifting, esp from 4th to 3rd and 3rd to 2nd to hear that noise. I assume it is safe, as the engine will rev match. If I am manually shifting the car, I don't shift down into first most times when coming to a stop sign, as the car gets good acceleration from 2nd.


As far as when to shift in the range, I think it depends on how hard you are on the throttle. Shifting out of 1st is quick (and I don't care for the 'fart' sound if you wait too long to shift into 2nd). When accelerating hard, I wait until over 6k RPMs to upshift (with 1st to 2nd being the exception, as I do upshift earlier there).

 

With rev-matching, there should be no difference in transmission wear between upshifting and downshifting, and the transmission is likely making the same number of shifts (up and down) in the automatic mode. I can't imagination that using the paddles induces more transmission wear.

 

I'm still running it in. When I play with the paddles I shift up at 4000rpm. I let the revs drop to 3000rpm before putting in a downshift to avoid exceeding 4500rpm as the engine rev-matches.

HTH

 

Spit my coffee out on that one! But I know exactly what you are talking about. With all the engineering going into getting the right sound out out of the exhaust, you'd think they'd have done something a bit better than that.

 

1) if you don't want wear and tear on the car, not driving it at all does wonders

2) if I want to stay quiet, shift up around 3k, if I want to make noise or go faster, shift up around 5k - if on track, shift up just before redline

3) you act like these cars are delicate flowers (coming from me, I guess that's amusing, given my engine blew up - but was assured from Jaguar that was unrelated to anything I did)

Shifting a lot would be harder on a clutch based system (particularly a dry clutch), in that it has a wear and tear part - the clutch. Even then, that's designed to wear and over time you replace it.
The ZF in the Jag doesn't have it, you are fine - they are very strong.

If you have the R or V8S, they have an electronic diff, so they actually have a clutch in there - pretty sure that's a dry clutch as well, so if anything, be more concerned about your diff (and even then, don't).

 

Always use the paddles!

Full gas up and shift at 4-6k rpm. That's the way to go.

And downshifts do not produce "that sound" at least in the V6S.

You have to hit the gas at least till 4k rpm , then release the gas to produce the sound It's sneaky.

Do not worry too much about wear and tear to the transmission. This Cat wants it rough, I guarantee you this.