As the title says, I know that different shifts mean different gear sizes bein used, but I don’t understand why it makes you unable to start moving the car. I have been able to start a couple of cars on the 2nd shift as an experiment and I understand that I could damage the car and I do it just once for testing purposes but I don’t understand why I cannot do so on other shifts. To clarify, I mean start as in start moving the car and not just turning the car on. Thanks
In: Engineering
Have you ever ridden a bicycle with gears?
A good friend and I use to “race” our 90s lowrider pickups (Mazda vs Isuzu) by starting in 5th gear. It took forever to get up to the speed limit.
Have you ever ridden a bicycle? It’s literally that. Higher gear makes you go faster but takes a lot more power to start rolling.
I think maybe like 1 out of 100 actually answered the question properly without introducing irrelevant info. Whack.
Simply, the transmissions and differential actually multiply the torque of the engine. In first, the transmission might be multiplying the torque by 3x, followed by the diff by 2x. So an engine making 100 power, in first gear would be making 100 x 3 x 2 = 600 power. In second, 100 x 2 x 2, which is 400 power, third being 300 power, etc.
So moving a 1000lbs ball is a lot easier with 600 power, than it would be with 100 power
You can, it’s harder on the car, but my Diesel Opel Astra can start in 3rd if you are carefull enough.
Some old tractors can only start from standing still for all gears because you can’t shift on the go.
Have you ever ridden a 20 speed bicycle? Next time, try this out: get up to speed, and put it on the highest gear you can. Then stop, without shifting down. This is now your car when it’s off. Now get on your bike and try to pedal that shit. Hard, right? This would be like shifting to 5th gear at the light and trying to go. What happens to you on the bike? You probably fall over. The car? It stalls.
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