ok when im cruising around town and i get to a nice long straightaway i get up to speed then throw it in neutral and coast. ive heard this could possibly be bad but is that true?

 

rolling at idle in neutral shouldnt hurt anything.

 

i haven't heard of that hurting anything, i have heard that driving with your hand on the shifter is bad for it though.

 

I've heard doing so, is illegal in some states.
It doesn't bother the car.

 

illegal...are you kidding me? shows where my tax money goes, to have people think up laws like this

 

It's been illegal for most of a century in most places..... the law dates back to when brakes really sucked, believe it or not they all used to be even worse than the stock disc/drum setups on these cars; they would fail at any time, usually because something would rupture, and since the master cyl was a single piston, any failure anywhere in the brake system took the whole thing down; so that was a standard law almost everywhere, for safety, with the engine as a backup to the brakes. It's also still illegal in most places to coast downhill with the clutch disengaged.

It won't hurt anything, but it doesn't do any particular good to drive that way either; and as mentioned, is technically illegal in most places, even though it's not particularly heavily enforced.

Driving with your hand on the shifter or your foot resting on the clutch causes wear on those parts. When you're not using them, they'll last longer if you don't touch them. In the case of the shifter, it's the little pads on the shift forks.

 

Yes it is illegal to be moving in neutral. But how are they ever going to know. I think it one of those stupid laws that doesn't get enforced.

 

wow....you defenitly learn something really new everyday.....id like to see a cop try to give me a ticket for that

 

Incidentally, the first accident I ever had, was coasting down a hill in a manual trans car with a single-piston master cyl, and a hose ruptured; I rear-ended 2 Pintos at the traffic light at the bottom. Almost right in front of Elvis's house, just a block or so north of it, back when that was still a nice part of town. Unfortunately neither of them blew up though. I was almost disappointed. One was nearly brand-new.

You can bet your posterior that I was downshifting that beetch as fast as I could. I had it in 1st and mostly slowed down before I mashed them.

 

lol...

 

I usually drive to a red traffic light in neutral cause I know I'm gonna be stopping in a moment. But I do it only if I drive slowly.

 

well the only reason i drive like that is because i figured coasting would save me some money at the pump and its easier

 

its not.


if you're EFI, keep it in gear, and dont make any large throttle changes... the computer will see that and let it run as lean as it can.


i usually skip gears on the upshift... like 1st, 3rd, 5th. if im in a 45 and am starting from a light or somthing.... around town i short shift and sometimes shortshift and skip gears.... not to save gas, more to not call unwanted attention to myself with the exhaust.


on the downshift, i usually go down to second... i know i can downshift into 1st, but i rarely do, or need to.

to maintain speed down hills, its usually in 4th and im using engine braking... unless its a fast hill.. then im in 5th.. and if i dont care about speeding, its in 6th.

 

i coast some times coast in neutral. other than that im accelerating fast till i hit the speed limit then backing off. you know because gas is so cheap. but i never have reved it up and dumped it i would be afraid to watch the t5 fly to hell or my rear for that matter.. lol

 

Believe it or not, you get better economy coasting in gear than coasting in neutral.

when your in neutral, and the engine goes to idle, it goes extra rich so it can run your accessories. When coasting, the weight of the car is helping turn the engine over, less fuel is used than at idle.

This is at least true with FI, not sure about carbed cars.

 

true that, when this new motor is in ill have to keep my foot off the floor. and nice smooooth shfts.....

 

Poor pintos. Why were they loose in the street?? You expect dear in the street, but pintos??