About left foot braking, it actually wears down the pads faster. My grandpa left foot braked, and his Nissan Altima needed brake pads at 35,000 miles. He didn't even hover his foot over the pedal. It is often faster to left foot brake, but it also means that the brakes engage when the engine and transmission are still providing resistance. --- Post updated --- It is a much better method to slow down on racetracks and fun roads, but isn't good during normal driving.
On the topic of crossovers, I think it really depends on the car. Some of them are really dumb from a practicality standpoint, since with a lot of them you get very little boot space and cramped interiors. But then there are others that do genuinely make use of the additional height. So for example, the Arona is based upon the Seat Ibiza, it shares the same dashboard etc. The Ibiza is actually a very practical car already (although my dad can't drive it because he has a knee injury, and Seat puts heavier clutches in them because non-suv's by law must be sporty "feeling" these days :/ ), but the Arona does actually give improved rear space with more legroom. With many crossovers the boot floor seems to be 5miles from the ground giving very poor boot space, but with some other models they actually deepen the boot to give more space. With all that said, the rear visibility on the Arona is a bit crap because the rear window is quite raised. But equally, we have sat in hatchbacks that also offer awful rear visibility.
I'm not even talking about aggressive left foot braking into corners, I got yelled at for using it to start off smoother on a hill. A friend of mine was trying to backup a gravel hill with a pickup (notorious for their terrible weight distribution) and kept trying to jump his foot from the brake to the gas fast enough that he wouldn't roll forward but just kept spinning the tires and ending up farther down the hill, I told him to use both feet to feather the gas and the brake and it was a totally new concept to him.
I spend a lot of time driving cars pretty hard and I've never seen any need to left foot brake. I kind of disdain two-footed driving. Using one foot was taught to me as one of the most basic principles of driving. Of course there are some circumstances where its acceptable or even necessary, such as doing a burnout or backing up a gravel hill in a pickup truck. The fraction of a second it takes you to switch from gas to brake in an emergency is negligible. I wonder if using two feet increases the risk of pedal misapplication during a panic stop.
I don't really know all that much about Ute's. But this seems like "a lot of engine" for £13k, especially considering how rare Ute's are in the UK. Then again, you can get a 500hp Cayenne Turbo for £11.5k. But I imagine that is because no sane person wants to take ownership of the cost of maintenance. Presumably those Ute's must be quite reliable?
they make you hill start here without left foot braking, there's an easy way of doing it with the parking brake... --- Post updated --- It's an LS, got to try to break it
I've never had an issue with pedal misapplication, but I can maybe see that being an issue in an unfamiliar vehicle, especially a smaller one with the pedals closer together. The only other time I left foot brake is decelerating in a semi truck where you have to use your right foot to rev match and don't ever have to touch the clutch because float shifting. My parking brake is also a pedal, and you have to reach under the dash to undo it, way easier IMO just to left foot brake.
A bad driving habit that I used to have was keeping the clutch in when decelerating (in certain circumstances, to be clear, it wasn't every time I hit the brakes). So sometimes when approaching a corner I would shift from 5rd to 3rd while braking. So I would start slowing down to the point where 5th was no longer appropriate, then change into 3rd, but then I would keep the clutch held down until I had slowed to the point where I knew that I still wanted to keep the car in 3rd. Its one of those things that I have always done in racing games (Mainly from road stages in AC) and had to unlearn before I took my driving test. In a racing game it makes sense, since its less pedal work and you get a more consistent braking torque at the wheels on occasions where you may need to go down more gears than initially expected (for staying in cars power band as best as possible on a corner of unknown curvature). But if you do that on your driving test you are considered to be not fully in control of the car, which is fair enough imo. Since if you get rear ended with the clutch down its a bit more dangerous etc.
I'm not talking about anything close to agressive driving in regards to the increased wear that left foot braking causes. My grandpa wasn't a racecar driver. There are a few applications where left foot braking is useful, but just not in everyday driving.
The car doesn't know what foot you put on the pedal, your grandpa was dragging the brakes, not just left foot braking.
He wasn't, it was the fact that the brakes were being applied as he was letting off the throttle. I wouldn't consider it dragging the brakes, instead I would call it applying the brakes early.
I left foot brake during autocross and around a track, as it's a touch faster since your right foot never needs to leave the accelerator. Left foot braking on the daily? Pointless.
I passed my test doing this and do it till this day when approaching roundabouts or a queue of cars at a red light. If I know what gear I generally want in a situation but know the situation might evolve, my clutch is down till I know for a fact I have to stop or can get away with second or third gear if I can keep moving. It's a habit that's saved my bacon when a situation does something unexpected. So not all bad. Just reserve it for when you know there's a good likelihood of whats up ahead changing.
