Holding gear lever

I guess if you're taking off from the lights, and you're shifting from 1st, 2nd 3rd maybe 4th within a 6 second period, then you might be excused for not returning your hand to the steering wheel.
but resting it there any other time clearly reduces your ability to control the vehicle.

I agree Ozram, there are definately lot of bad habits around the place.

The taxis that i've been in lately, seem to accelerate and brake repeatedly, (every 3-5seconds) instead of feathering the throttle to maintain a constant speed.
I can't imagine the wear on brakes, and fuel wastage from this.
the first time i experienced it, i thought the driver was tired, but now i've had the same experience in many cabs.

Taxi drivers are notorius for being hard on their cars - a friend who used to work for Borg Warner told me a hilarious story about a driver who was so bad that they logged his inputs and used it for testing their gearboxes because it was harder on the components than anything their engineering team could devise.

Apparently, the log escaped to vehicle manufacturers for testing their engines, drivetrains and brakes because of the same reason :)

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Originally Posted by kaanage

Taxi drivers are notorius for being hard on their cars - a friend who used to work for Borg Warner told me a hilarious story about a driver who was so bad that they logged his inputs and used it for testing their gearboxes because it was harder on the components than anything their engineering team could devise.

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While I've seen some really bad drivers, I'd think that the manufacturer of the car would have better break testing than a taxi driver. There was a documentary many years ago about the making of the VB commodore that showed how Holden tested the auto. A test driver on a large concret area with his foot on the brake (gently) to hold the front while at full throttle in a 308 trimatic, rear wheels smoking, changing from drive to reverse and valve bouncing the engine. According to the commentator, they would do this for hours at a time, then pull things apart to see what this accelerated wear was doing.

I'm sure similar testing is done in laboroatories before they sell the boxes to car makers.

Believe what you like.

Engineers will devise harsh tests in a systematic way but users (in this case drivers) can operate systems in a manner that will not make sense to those who design or regularly consult with the designers of systems (ask anyone in IT support/development).

The story I relayed was told to me by one of the engineers involved who couldn't figure out how their new flagship gearbox was failing so quickly in real world testing. The driver used for their rollout test was not random - they asked a taxi company to specifically assign the car with the new gearbox to the driver with the worst maintenance record.
They only logged the driver's inputs (without telling him that they were doing so) after about 3 gearbox failures and when they played back the inputs on their test rig (with idle time edited out), they thought the system was malfunctioning due to the apparent randomness and savagery of the throttle/shift/brake operations. Detailed checks of the test system and comparison of the test input recording vs the original logged inputs showed that system was faithfully reproducing the actions of the driver.

Truth (actual driver usage in this case) can be stranger than fiction (test schemes devised by design/QA departments)

Sorry, wasn't having a go at you - far from it - I'm just amazed that given the stupid things they do to cars in testing are not enough when you see the punishment they go through. Seems pointless to devise a 'harsh test in a sympathetic way' - but having attended a 5 day 'software testing workshop' where the lecturer insisted that testers ignore what the progammers say is the way to test things (and my team managed to break things by ignoring what the progammers said).... I guess I should be less sceptical.

What is does sound like though is that the car maker ask for a high enough spec box for their product. Seems to be the case for most failures of things outsourced. I'd love to see some footage of what this driver was doing to be that savage - must have been driving it like a rental car all the time.

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Originally Posted by kaanage

Truth (actual driver usage in this case) can be stranger than fiction (test schemes devised by design/QA departments)

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My father was a motor mechanic (started work in the 50s) and recalls issues that many drivers had with their cars back then. Constant complaints about shocking fuel consumption as an example....turned out to be that the drivers were pulling the choke knobs out (how many of you can remember cars with manual chokes??) to allow them to hang objects on....just when you think you have seen it all.

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Originally Posted by Ozram

sdhog2002,

Its not going to cause an immediate failure but over time it can make the gear lever action loose and eventually lead to gear changing problems. My Dad always used to say that when he was learning to drive the instructer had a wooden ruler and would rap him over the knuckles if he left his hand on the gear lever and also his thigh if he left his foot on the clutch.

In a similar vein, I saw a brand new Holden Cruze being driven the other day and the guy had his foot resting on the brake pedal all the time as his brakelights were blinding me. I see that happening more frequently. Some people must have bottomless pockets for the repair & servicing costs involved with doing that.

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The Holden Cruze doesn't have a footrest, that helped it achieve a 5 star safety rating apparently

Footrests (both sides) are great when driving long distances with cruise control switched on. Hard on the feet if they are cramped up to avoid touching the gas pedal on cruise.