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I see in some city car reviews, like the Citroen C1, that they have something called "Long Gearing".

What is Long Gearing?

What are the implications of it?

George
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1 Answers1

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Long/short gearing basically refers to what the transmission is designed to do and at what RPM you want your vehicle to run at a given speed.

Short gearing refers to having the gear ratios closer together so as to have faster shifts and get to speed quicker while using a minimal amount of torque to get you there. The trade-off is you have a slower top speed. In smaller, fuel efficient vehicles, this is less important because you usually don't drive them at 120mph down the autobahn.

Long gearing refers to having the gear ratios spread further apart, with the final drive (usually an overdrive) allowing for a higher top speed with less engine RPM. This gives you better fuel mileage in the long run at the trade off of usually having a slower take-off speed. This is the type of gearing you want if you are running the vehicle down the highway all the time.

Usually, both the final drive gearing and the differential gearing together will indicate whether a vehicle is long or short geared. There really isn't a magic number saying if your final drive is above 3.4:1 final drive you are running a long geared transmission (Note: I just threw that number out there, lol.) It's a matter of one transmission/differential gearing being longer or shorter than another.

Zaid
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Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2
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    120MPH down the autobahn? Better not hang out in the left lane! :) – 3Dave Oct 06 '15 at 18:54
  • "both the final drive gearing and the differential gearing together will indicate..." Final drive is the differential!. You meant to say; "both the final drive gearing and the transmission gearing together..." – Jonathan Uyan Nov 14 '18 at 18:05