Do You Need to Press the Brake When Engaging the Clutch?

[Erica]

When driving a manual transmission, it's not always necessary to press the clutch while braking. The key factors to consider are vehicle speed, gear position, and engine RPM. Here's some relevant information: 1. The engine's power is transmitted to the gearbox through the clutch, and the gearbox alters the engine's RPM (through gear shifting) before transmitting it to the wheels. The engine and wheels always rotate synchronously at a certain ratio. 2. Therefore, the theoretical minimum speed for each gear is the vehicle speed at engine idle. When the vehicle speed in a particular gear falls below this threshold, the engine is prone to stalling. During deceleration, as long as the current speed is above the idle speed for that gear, there's no need to press the clutch. When braking in the current gear, you don't need to press the clutch as long as the engine RPM doesn't drop below idle speed.