For those of you who like to drive semi-auto, you'll find that going to lower gears gives the car an uncomfortable jerk as the engine brakes kick in. Well on my bike, I always blip the throttle changing down a gear and it provides a smooth gear change. Turns out the same goes on an auto. Change gears manually with the t bar, wait about 0.25 seconds and just give the throttle a small blip. You wont surge forward as in the time it takes for it to change gears, your effectively in neutral. When it changes, you wont feel any jerks. Good for those corners and roundabouts if your feeling a little enthusiastic. If anyone thinks this is bad for the auto, please let me know now, but from what I gather, I dont see how it would.

do you have any problems shifting out of park? i find the misses car ill make a clunk/jolt when she starts it and shifts out of park to reverse or drive but its fine if she moves it to neutral while the cars off then starts it...?

also i assume the 4spd auto?

old news, just rev matching, same in theory to manual down shifting. can't see it hurting the box though. just gotta be quick.

I only get that if i'm on a steep hill, and yeh, its a 4spd.



yeh, I never heard any1 doing it in an auto b4 but then again, I miss out on a lot of the good info. I wouldn't have normally posted about my own little findings, but the difference is so good, hopefully some people here have never tried it and will be surprised.

Could also be the dodgey hand brake issue on the BA's. Chances are all the weight is on the "park brake" as opposed to have the weight of the car on the hand brake. Hence the clunk. Might wanna get the Hand brake adjusted and the bushes/shoes replaced, should be all sweet then.

I almost always throttle match in any auto car. The clunking is the BA s**t handbrake letting the gearbox take the weight of the car. Best way to park is to stop, pull the handbrake on and make sure the car doesn't move then put it into park. Shouldn't clunk then unless the car moves after its in park.

thats so true, i have a steep hill at my house. One time I got out, got some bags out of my car and the car lurched back all of a sudden and caught on the gears luckily. scared the s**t out of me. I kept the car in neutral, put the handbrake on to make sure and realised that if I dont pull it up every click, it makes groaning sounds like its about to let go.