In an attempt to save money I began to put my truck in neutral early to coming up to stop signs and traffic lights. This drops the rpms from anywhere from 2000 to 1000 to about 500. I have gotten very good with it but I stopped as of late until I could figure out if this is harmful. It was becoming second nature and it was helping a bit and hey it was free. So if anyone could help me out that would be appreciated!

 

I don't think it would really hurt your tranny. Why dont you just lift your foot of the gas? You are not really saving that much if anything at all.


Jeff

 

I'd imagine just added wear and tear on your linkage and seals. Also, with it going into N, it's not shifting down and slowing you down so you're using more brake to do so. Doing this as you show put the RPMs low so when you kick it back into D, you've got to bring them back up to get moving again.

 

well i kinda want new brakes. the ones that are in here are cheap and squeak and are garbage and I dont do it when i know i might have to throw it back in drive. I try to make sure its only when im coming to a complete stop. I have noticed it saves a bit but prolly not a ton. Its also nice for coasting for a long time before a stop sign. but i dunno if i truly am saving anything but i would assume it adds up with all the stopping one encounters during the day.

 

I also do this when I see a good opportunity to do so, like coming up to a long light or lots of cars in front of me at a light, stuff like that. I don't know if its in my head or not but I can feel a little more braking power when I shift into N, I guess the proof is in the fact when you have it in D you move and when you're in N you don't, so you eliminating that little added torque. That helps since I've got 285's and stock brakes so its a bit harder for me to come to a complete stop than others.

 

BUT WHAT ABOUT SHIFTING THE AUTOMATIC MANUALLY

 

Most newer model vehicles have feul injection.
Feul injection should be factory programmed to shut off feul delivery when decelerating (foot completely off of the pedal) I may be wrong but most throttle body and multi-port feul injection have this in the prom on the computer, so, shifting to neutral would actually burn more feul than shifting to neutral. I could be wrong but, most I have delt with are this way.