MT shift suggestions
 

So I enabled the gear indicator on my IC, and I'm a little skeptical on the suggested upshifts... It seems a little too ambitious for 6th gear. Doing 30MPH, it will tell you to shiftable the way to 6th. IIRC that had me at 1300RPM. Obviously I wouldn't accelerate at that point, but it seems that may be a little too strenuous for the motor. Am I way off on this? BTW, I got 27MPG on my first tank, shifting for what I felt was appropriate. So it's obvious I don't keep the car at 3K just cruising.

The shift points are to achieve the best gas mileage from what I understand. I tend to follow it when I am just cruising to work and such. I have been averaging 30+ MPG driving like this. Sometimes it does seem to want to shift a little early but I have noticed this only when I am cruising at a constant speed on a relatively flat road.

Now for more aggressive and fun driving just ignore the dash and shift when you feel it is appropriate.

Mine always shows the up arrow around 2000 rpm. If I am cruising along its fine to keep it there but accelerating and shifting at 2000 is pretty slow, I usually shift at minimum 3000 and probably 4 or 5 getting on the highway.

Loading up the engine with heavy throttle in a high gear at low RPM is only going to use more fuel than necessary.

That's about it.

I normally shift around 5-6. 7-8 if I'm feeling ambitious.

Ya. I've owned nothing but manuals in my 16 yrs of driving, so I'm not new to it. I shift at higher RPM's than most people I've rode with. I was just curious about people's thoughts on if it may strain our low torque machines... :/

just got my car thursday and i also noticed that it only tells u to shift when ur at a constant speed or at least same amount of constant throttle...it usually tells me to shift around 2500 rpm...I have been shifting when it tells me to and i achieved 38.5mpg my first drive home which was 90% highway and crusing around 50-60mph...right now my dash reads 34.1 mpg..ive driven 137miles so far and my tank is still right above the line before Full...im going to keep shifting like this

1300rpm at 30mph is fine, the engine load will be close to nothing anyways because it's just 30mph, just don't floor it at low engine speed. Going 60mph in 6th gear is much more strenuous than going 30mph in 6th, despite the higher rpm, your load is probably tripled. So as a percentage of available power you're using more at 60mph.