Just dawned on me, how many times does a driver shift gears driving in an entire year

[johnnymkv]

I think it's incredible how much we shift our manual cars' gears every day during driving. The moment you start your trip, to when you get home. During the spring the summer, the winter the roadtrips one may have. It's mind bending. Probably over several hundred thousand times. Areas of such activity are in stop and go traffic, detours, back roads, highways, big inner cities and rural areas, a trip to the grocery store. I mean like DAILY driving.

I've driven manual for over a year, it's a charm, very pleasant to drive. I'm in love with it, during traffic I can curse it but I still enjoy it very much. I think all german autos' clutch and pedal feel along with the closeness of the gears feel so slick and easy to drive compared to other makes.

How many times in a year does one shift gears? Tried searching but, no answers. I'm sure it's some ridiculous, and wicked crazy amount. :word:

 

[g_berserk]

My guestimate based on my daily commute and adding a few more for good measure rounds up to 75,000 yearly because right now me and the GF take turns to drive to work (we both work at the same company).

Only thing more impressive than the number itself it's how well the gearbox system endures over that amount of work

 

[Crispy21]

Prob around 100k

 

[bhmkv]

Depends on person and commute. I havent moved my car in 2 months.

 

[Crispy21]

Depends on person and commute. I havent moved my car in 2 months.

Same, typical car is prob 75-100k. Mine is prob 2-3k :lol:

 

[utekineir]

All subjective to the type of driving.

On a day called in to deliver mail i have probably 2000 shifts. Figure 400+ boxes, portions of 1-3 up and down, rinse, wash, repeat plus non highway half hour there and back. With a clutch a lot stiffer than the oem mkv gti clutch. Not expecting a lot of life out of that clutch.... Or my knee.

Really gotta get around to fixing the actual work car.

 

[g_berserk]

All subjective to the type of driving.

On a day called in to deliver mail i have probably 2000 shifts. Figure 400+ boxes, portions of 1-3 up and down, rinse, wash, repeat plus non highway half hour there and back. With a clutch a lot stiffer than the oem mkv gti clutch. Not expecting a lot of life out of that clutch.... Or my knee.

Really gotta get around to fixing the actual work car.

I hear you man.
On my previous car, the clutch was mechanical and considerably stiffer; and in heavy traffic I always heard a faint squeak when pressing the clutch.
I took it to the shop many times and they couldn't replicate the problem but greased the mechanism anyway.

I was almost giving up on the problem when I finally realized that the squeaking was coming from my knee cap and not the clutch pedal :yikes:, needless to say, the GTI is now a blessing in that particular department.

 

[UGFast89]

I'd say around 80-100k for me. I always take it up to 6th and down shifting is a great factor as well

 

[johnnymkv]

I wanted to count just for today's driving, meh, I couldn't do it too much to keep count.

 

[The Fed]

Yeah, too many times. I commuted to work in a big block Trans Am for four years. After that, I only bought automatics.

 

[1972vw]

Well I counted the number of times I shifted today on my commute to classes. It's ~5 miles but all city driving. I counted 56 shifts.