I am curious does down shifting to slow down cause more wear and tear on your tranny....leading to problems sooner? Or what kind of problems are there if any related to downshifting to slow down??

 

As long as you are not over-reving, riding your clutch, or power-shfting, you should be ok...

 

start learning how to rev match ur ds. When you ds into a gear; the tech will jump to a rpm, which will make it hard on the tranny. For example; if your doing 40mph in 4th and you want 2nd gear; rev your car to 4--4 1/2 while putting into second (you feel a much smoother ds), then let go of ur clutch and go wot. Good luck

 

He wants to slow down, not speed up.

I have always downshifted in all my vehicles and never had a problem. I never had to change the brakes in my truck either.

 

Can you explain "power shifting" ?
I'm a noob stick driver and don't want to harm my pony (so to speak)

 

Same here.

Also. Say you are in 4th and going to make a turn, How would you approach this common situation?

 

I think we need a 5-speed driving 101 sticky thread !!!

 

Push in the clutch, drop to 3rd as you slowly push the brake and simultaneously let out the clutch. You will use your engine to slow you down as well as your brakepads. Then, when you hit 1.2Kish RPM's, repeat with second gear. It's stupid to ds into 1st for common braking, the ratio is too high.

As for powershifting, it is essentially not letting go of the throttle when you shift, thereby revving the engine higher (possibly past redline), burning your clutch, and shocking your tranny. You go pretty fast though ;-).

Another term is "double-clutching". Personally I think this is kinda a waste of time. You do as Johnney said (match your revs to save your clutch a bit), but you do it with the stick in the neutral position which times your tranny to the same RPM's. It's supposed to save wear and tear on your syncro's by spinning the tranny, but it seems mastering it while still hauling @$$ to catch up to that c5 would be a difficult concept.

 

Something I learned is you don't down shift to slow down unless you're in snow or coming down a grade, etc. Brakes are a lot cheaper and easier to replace than cluthces and transmissions.

 

I've never had premature transmission or clutch failure in any vehicle, and I was taught to do this from day one. Really, as long as you aren't burning the clutch it will be fine.