C4 1.6 Vtr +Hdi Gear Change

[jmtalire]

Hi im new to this forum and im by no means a car expert, so please excuse any ignorance :)

I recently aquired my first diesel car; a Citroen C4 1.6 VTR +HDI (no idea what all the letters mean, but i know its quite nippy). Now, going from a life long petrol car driver to a diesel, im finding when to change gear and a what rev's to be quite tricky (may sound silly i know). In my petrol a drove 30mph in 4th, and 40mph+ in 5th; easy. But now in my diesel im finding driving 30mph in 4th and 40mph in 5th to be too low a gear. Could any fellow Citroen or diesel drivers  please advise if im driving it correctly? And also at what revs should i be changing up gears and driving at a constant rev should i be using to drive economically?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice given :D

[paul.h]

Welcome to the forum.

 

What year and what power output is the engine - 90 or 110 bhp but I am guessing 90 since you only mention 5 gears ? We are now on our 3rd C4 1.6 hdi and each newer car has slightly higher gearing to give improved fuel economy but I find our latest one needs just above 30 mph to use 4th gear and just above 40 mph to use 5th gear and then 45 to 50 mph to use 6th.

 

Diesel cars are usually driven changing gears at a lower rpm than a petrol and about 2000 rpm may be about right so that in the higher gear the engine is about 1200 to 1500 rpm. If it struggles once in the higher gear then maybe a higher rpm gear change may be needed. The engine peak torque is around 1800 rpm so it will pull at its best around this value and revving much above this is not normally needed unless accelerating/overtaking/doing 70 on a motorway. 

[tmd63]

The vehicle may be the 110 but the vehicle  may not have gotten fast enough for 6th.

As with all automatic diesels, the ECU will control the gear depeanding on the speed and the load!

There is a feature that automatics use called 'kick-down'. When you are crusing at, say 30, and need to get quick acceleration. You just thump down on the accelerator and the gearbox automatically drops a gear to give more power. This is a standard operation for automatic gearboxes.

If this a manual gearbox. My automatic uses gear changes around 1500 to 3500 RPM. Change ups depend on load but are around 3000RPM and change downs are around 2000.