Everyone pretty much knows about how many Subies are kinda difficult to drive smoothly right off the lot. There is a learning curve. It's not like some Honda or Acura that you can shift however you want and still get a smooth drive. The hardest shift is from 1st to 2nd since there's such a big gap between the two gears.

I've been playing around in my '02 WRX, seeing what method of shifting will get the smoothest drivability. This is what I found... If I'm in 1st gear and going to shift into 2nd, I press in the clutch a little past the engagement point, shift, let the clutch out smoothly. So far, it's been really smooth. No "herky-jerky" movements.

I don't think there's any slipping of the clutch or anything. But I just ask if this method is ok, cuz when I learned how to drive stick, I was taught to ALWAYS press the clutch in all the way to the floor in order to shift. So is not pressing the clutch in all the way in order to shift to 2nd alright for my car? Am I hurting something instantly or even down the line?

 

Depressing the clutch pedal all the way in ensures complete disengagement if the clutch is functioning properly. It shouldn't be necessary to use any sort of tricks to drive a WRX smoothly. This won't hurt anything if your revs are perfectly matched with your vehicle speed to engage 2nd gear but any slight mismatch will make the synchros work that much harder to engage. I think it can cause the synchros to wear out sooner than normal.

If you don't have any clutch 'judder' (as SOA refers to it) issues, there really shouldn't be a problem shifting from 1st to 2nd gear.

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0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush

 

The only reason why I drove kinda funny the first time coming out of the lot is because I was soo excited. After the first day, it drove perfectly.