The term “Lugging Your Engine” is meant to imply you’re making your engine work harder than it should to get up to speed. This means you’re in a gear that’s higher than you should be when you’re driving a manual transmission vehicle. This is extremely bad for your engine because it makes your engine work harder than it should when you need to accelerate, putting unnecessary wear and tear on the engine and causing it to run hotter than it needs to in order to reach the desired speed.
Being in a lower gear is ideal when you’re accelerating through the gears or you’re cruising along at lower speeds. This leaves you a few gears to be able to move upward and have the room to accelerate to higher speeds and higher revs in the engine. If you are cruising along at a lower speed but in a higher gear, you aren’t allowing your engine to perform the way you need it to in order to bring the car to the right performance number to ensure you can enjoy the acceleration you want. This can cause harm to the engine and is even worse for your engine components if you have a turbocharger or supercharger under the hood as well.
Imagine riding a bicycle and being in the top gear but needing to accelerate. This can be extremely difficult to do and you would need to downshift the bike to a lower gear so that you could easily accelerate as you need to. This is the same for your car; if you’re driving in a gear that’s too high for the speed and revs you have the engine at, you won’t be able to accelerate when you need to. This can be a serious problem as you put too much strain on your engine just like riding the bicycle in the high gear would put too much strain on your body.
There are two solutions for you to choose if you find that you happen to lug your engine often. The first is to learn to drive your vehicle the right way. If you want it to last and be able to enjoy the benefits of giving you more miles on the road you need to know how to drive your car. This is the most economical way for you to keep driving the vehicle you’ve come to love and learn the right way to make your car perform properly.
The second choice you have is to trade your sell your vehicle for one that has an automatic transmission which will give you the right gear every time. This could be problematic if you want to enjoy the benefits of a great sports car that has a manual transmission. Because of this, I suggest you learn how to drive your car and be in the right gear every time. Check out this video and learn even more about why you should never lug your engine.
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