Not entirely sure what you mean by this but I think I get it. If the engine is not under load (ie. you are not pressing on the gas), it uses just as much gas as idle or at least close to the same amount of gas. It's like on a turbo car, the turbo is only engaged under load. I can be at 6000 RPM and the turbo won't be doing a damn thing.

 

ambystom01, the last statement is more for the older car. When car still don't have a ECU to control the engine.

For newer car, your statment may hold more true than my as I don't know how the ECU work...

 

Ak, thought you might have been talking about a carburated motor.

 

Bro now your going around threads looking for my post to talk crap. W/e kid let me spell how i wish to spell. Like i said im no english major but i know what i need to know. you don't hurt me so stop trying.

 

Using the motor to keep the speed in check when descending a steep hill is absolutely the correct thing to do.

Using the motor to slow the car in place of brakes is absolutely the wrong thing to do.

You're not going to save any significant amount of gas by putting the car in neutral every time you are on some slight downward grade. Maybe $10 over a lifetime???

With regards to control, consider this situation: I'm driving 50 MPH in 4th gear and I see a stop light turn red ahead of me. Under any normal circumstances I would leave the car in 4th until I'm doing about 25, then slap it into neutral. The car stays in neutral until the light turns green. Imagine, however, that as I'm doing 30 something happens that requires me to accelerate in an emergency. (This has never happened to me in 24 years of driving, but I guess there is some finite possibility of it happening.) Sure, I'm in gear, but I have NO torque in 4th gear at 30 MPH, so I can't accelerate anyways! I still have to shift gears to do anything, but now I have wasted time trying to get the car moving in 4th gear. On the other hand, if the emergency happened while I was doing 40, then maybe I do have some advantage for having the car in gear.

So, I figure the chances of such an emergency that requires immediate acceleration are extremely small. If it happened, I imagine the chances you would have to shift anyway are fairly high, unless you downshift through the gears every time you slow down. I'm not going to do that. I've been driving a stick for a long time, and I can get into the gear I want in a pinch in less than a second. So, for me it doesn't matter much.

Everybody makes spelling/grammar mistakes on occasion. If you make frequent mistakes, type illegibly, and don't car, then I believe you are being rude to the readers. It annoys me when I find my time wasted trying to decipher a sloppy post because the writer wouldn't take one minute out of his busy day to write properly. Of course, I can always ignore the sloppy post.

 

i toss into neutral, it doesn't harm me or affect me so ill keep doing it. its like second nature now. Sometimes when im going down a very steep hill i like to toss it into neutral cause i can get to the speed i want to be at without giving gas. if you leave it in gear it will slow down. thats 1 of the other reasons i toss it into Neutral

 

or you can just leave it in gear and tap the gas slightly. I personally don't like leaving the car in neutral while moving for a long time (ie. when going down a hill) because you never know when you'll need to move and, more importantly, keeping the car in gear can mean better control in slippery conditions.

 

My brother wants me to give engine braking a try. I can't get the hang of it and it is much easier to just put it in neutral and keep your foot on the brake.

At this point, I don't really see why I would want to wear out my clutch even more rather than my brake pads which are much cheaper to replace.

 

Tell your brother he needs some lessons on driving!

 

At the risk of beating a dead horse, here's another argument against engine braking (with the exception of descending a steep hill): High-end manufacturers like Ferrari, BMW, and Jaguar now have their paddle-shift transmissions set up to rev the motor prior to engaging a downshift. So, when you hit a paddle for a downshift, the engine is disengaged from the tranny, the engine increases revs, and then the engine and tranny engage. Why is this done??? It is done precisely to PREVENT engine braking. This is the automatic transmssion equivalent of a heel-toe downshift. The purpose of which also is to PREVENT engine braking during a downshift. I think the engineers at Ferrari have a good idea of what they are doing!

 

Those systems are also on high end, dedicated sports cars, not the average street cars. It's not the equivalent of a heel-toe downshift, it's the equivalent of a rev-matched downshift (heel-toe refers to braking and downshifting). Yes it's done to prevent engine braking but that doesn't mean engine braking is a bad thing. While I wouldn't do it all the time, in some situations engine braking is great, ie. when the roads are incredibly slippery.
Maybe you should also take your own advice and take some lessons on driving since you seem to be confused on some concepts.

 

To get back on the topic, I prefer the MT because has a simple construction compared to automatics even CVT-s. MT-s are durable and have been around for many years. I'm not saying that CVT aren't reliable but they are new and we don't know exactly how strong they are. And about performance, the CVT looks good on paper but it doesn't shine in the real world. (People have reported slower 0-60 times with CVT). And I've seen applications of the CVT on low end relatively "slow" cars such as Lancer or Altima. manufactures prefer MTs on performance cars or anothat type of automatic transmission such as a DSG etc. Maybe the CVT cannot handle a lot of power and still be reliable. However as all automatics it's very convenient in traffic.
But I don't think I would like all that smoothness that the cvt offers. The jerking motion you can get with the MT makes you feel that your accelerating fast etc. while the CVT may feel slow because no real gear change happens. And people WANT the jerking motions that's why the paddle shifters are there. And do you want to hear the same noise from the engine when the CVT keeps the rpm unchanged or would you rather hear some vroom vroom

 

Its all personal preference, hense why this thread will never end lol

 

Well, for the record... I only chose MT this time cuz it was $1000 cheaper compared to CVT.

But besides that, I really like driving MT. It's challenging and fun at the same time.

 

Yeah you're right. I forgot to mention that too. The cost factor, last but not least.
the MT really makes my day, I have a lot of fun driving it. Automatics are for commuters and manuals for the drivers