When I am driving in my car and I have to brake for something, I always use the clutch first and then brake. From what I hear, you then have no control over your car, why is that? And why is that not the case when you first brake and then use the clutch when rpm is low enough.
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That’s a specific condition only true on steep declining roads. On a flat road, there’s no issue with pressing the clutch before braking.
On a decline, you need power at the wheels for engine braking, if you press the clutch then the car is at the mercy of brakes only, no engine braking. In such a case, brakes may fail due to overheating then you might end up with an uncontrolled car hurling towards down.
You don’t lose control. Sounds like someone is trying to educate you on something they have no knowledge of.
Pushing in the clutch disengages the motor from the wheels. It prevents you from accelerating. It’s no different than when you have the gear selector in neutral with the clutch out.
Edit: to add to this. You can brake without pushing in the clutch just fine. When you press the clutch in and change gears is dependent on your speed. If you slowed down enough then you downshift. If you only slow down like 10mph from 60 to 50 then no need for the clutch. However, if you slow down from 60 to 30 then you need to clutch and downshift.
For the period that the clutch is in but not the brake you are coasting, which is technically illegal in many jurisdictions although in practice that isn’t an issue for such a short moment.
The real question is, why bother doing it this way? If you need to brake then apply the brake. If you have slowed down to the point that the engine might stall then apply the clutch. Otherwise leave the clutch alone.
It’s not what you are thinking, what they mean is that you lose the ability to quickly deliver power if needed. Of course, typically if you are stopping you are intending to stop, but you never know if a situation will require you to apply acceleration to get out of danger or to take advantage of an opening in traffic. I’ve also heard concerns about if you get rear-ended then being in neutral could allow your car to coast into oncoming traffic. But also, leaving the clutch engaged allows you to harness engine breaking, again another minor benefit. Clutching in before braking has zero benefits, and staying in gear has marginal benefits, so the better practice is to just leave the car in gear until you stop.
If you go downhill and it’s steep pressing the clutch first will actually give you a small boost of speed as there is no more engine breaking happening.
Pressing the brakes first will keep the car from getting this boost.
you don’t lose control, the motor simply disengages from the wheels making you unable to make use of the engine brake to help slow down your car
Perhaps you mean the lack of engine breaking, so wheels can freely change speed resulting in a skid?
I think with modern cars/instructors they tell you not to press the clutch in when breaking (only to change gear or prevent stalling just before you stop).
With an emergency stop you obviously want to push the clutch down as you want to stop moving entirely.
Disclaimer: I find myself coasting more than I should, just because of how I was taught and the habits I developed.
If your engine is at high RPM when you want to slow down, don’t use the clutch. The engine will help you slow down. If your car has a tachometer, note where the RPMs are at an idle. Say it’s 700 RPM, once the RPM decelerates to around 1200 – 1000 RPM, the engine’s ability to help brake is reduced to next to nothing. That’s when you should use the clutch, downshift, and take it from there…
Of course, if there’s a potentially emergency situation developing where hard braking is required, your instincts are spot on. Don’t attempt to manage your drivetrain/engine braking. Left foot clutch, right foot brake, lock ‘em up if necessary.
As others have said, losing control is situation specific so I won’t go into that here. I daily a manual in the US and I do the reverse of you. Approaching a light or traffic, I brake first and then clutch down as the engine slows down. I do this mostly to save some gas as the engine will either shut off the injectors or put a bare minimum in while the engine is under a reverse load.
Also, I push it into 1st just as the car rolls to a stop as I sometimes have trouble engaging that gear when stopped.
Just stay in gear as much as possible. That is the take away. Lots of people are going to want to talk about things they don’t know about here. Clutching in before you brake is essentially always wrong unless you are shifting.
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