I switch between 4 and 5, I sometimes find having it in 5th leaves it too low in the powerband for any quick acceleration tho.

 

Nah, the OP lives in the US. With our posted speed limits trying to commute in V-Tech will end up costing you quite a bit in speeding tickets. At least for any gear other than first, maybe second.


That being said, feel free to drive the car however you feel comfortable. Anything short of constant thrashing at redline should be safe. Keeping lower revs is definitely easier on the gas mileage, however.

 

i would think it would unsafe to cruise in any lower RPM, cuz if ur at 2k for instance and you have to split second pass or merge its gonna take a little bit of rev time to get the little torqless wonder moving, that actually happened to me recently.. misjudged the length of "lane ending" and didnt stick the rpms hard enough to get past the truck

 

Mine seems happiest cruising between 3K and 4K. I pick the gear that allows me to run in that range for the speed I'm traveling. Sounds to me like 4th would be good for you. Casual driving I shift up at 5K.

 

I usually shift at 5k to keep up with other cars on the road, shift at 3.5k to be "chill" and have quieter driving. It's funny when you have a passenger and they think you're speeding when shifting at 5k when you tell them you're still under speed limit.