[Guest]

Just bought an ST this week and am really enjoying it, but I have a couple questions. Let me preface this by saying that while I understood the basics of driving a manual, I am not that good at it, so there is a LOT of learning going on while I drive!

1. I was always told shift up at 3000 rpm, down at 1000 rpm. The shift up indicator on the trip computer seems to be telling me to shift up much sooner than that, around 2500 rpm or so. Does anyone have thoughts on the accuracy of the shift up arrow?

2. The owners manual supplement for the 2016 ST lists "Recommended Shift Speeds" on page 11. It recommends shifting from 4th to 5th at 41 mph, then from 5th to 6th at 42 mph. That has to be a typo, right?

 

[KKaWing]

The non blinking arrow is for best fuel economy. You can ignore it somewhat. Just use more gas is all. For example in super heavy traffic. Would you rather just keep first gear at say 2000 rpm for the 10 or so ft. you're going to move before you have to stop again or shift up to second? Do you want some passing power by keeping the revs a bit high before you "find your pack" on the freeway and settle on a cruising speed or downshift only when you need to? I'm the sorta lazy type and I'll just stay in a lower gear until I know I don't need to downshift. Then again, there's a reason why I'm averaging 26mpg

 

[bobmaxed]

No, I don't believe the recommended shift speeds are typo's. But those are very conservative numbers.

 

[Sil3nt611]

The 3000rpm shift rule people always say is just a general idea of when to shift for regular driving for newbies, it is by no means the rule to follow all the time. Every car is different and the shift light is for fuel economy. When you've been driving for awhile you will shift when it feels right to shift rather than look at the shift light or tach. If you're accelerating and need power, the 2500 rpm the shift light says is not going to be enough. On the other hand, driving at a slow steady pace you can shift before 2500 rpm to get into a higher gear and stay at that steady pace. There's no hard and fast rule about when you should shift. Just experiment and test when it's too early to shift for you and do a hard acceleration and feel when the power starts to drop off to know the high end of when to shift. If you shifted at 3000 rpm all the time you could go get any manual car and do that. Have fun with the FiST.

 

[arcyallen]

Here's my two cents: Drive it to enjoy it, just don't beat on it. I'll drive it like a granny 80% of the time, "normal" 18% of the time, and hard 2% of the time. If you're constantly hitting redline, you're going to drastically shorten the life of the engine and the car. I can count on two hands how many times I've redlined a car in 500K miles of driving, and have had really good mechanical "luck" with my cars. Having said that, enjoy it! You (probably) bought an ST to have fun.