yea, .2 mpg might not seem like its worth it, but you really can tell a difference when you idle in neutral as opposed to in gear.

like someone said before, if youre at a redlight and your in neutral, you dont have to press your brakes as hard to keep your car from moving. if you were in D, youd have to apply more pressure for the mere fact the car is already inclined to move forward.

the thing about AT Fits is that theyre a quirky car in its class. paddle shifters and a 5 speed AT tranny. its almost built to give you different options in driving it. i know that i stay in S mode on the freeways to select my gears, and D while in traffic or on roads. is that how youre supposed to drive your AT Fit? maybe, but everyone drives differently.

im a firm believer that everyone should at least learn to drive a manual car, even if theyre eventually going to get an AT. this way, they understand how the gears in their car work, and what the car is actually doing when you depress the throttle to a certain point, slam your brakes, slow down (engine breaking), etc.

once i told my friend to press down on her throttle, and she asked me "i have one of those?". i just stared at her in awe. youd think with so many cars on the road people would know more about the things that get them around. ha.

 

Amen to that! I made all my kids learn to drive a manual, even if they had automatics. You just never know what the situation will be.
Once, when I was skydiving, a guy got injured and had to be flown from a country town, where the drop zone was, to UAB Hospital in Birmingham. His car was a manual shift, and his girlfriend who was with him didn't know how to drive a stick. Someone else had to drive his car, and a third person drove that person's car. Her dad should have taught her.

 

You should take it one step farther and turn the car off at red lights, that will save you even more fuel!! You know, hybrids do it right?

*Dumps the clutch and takes off laughing*

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. I used to know a guy who would shift from "D" into "1" and then "2" to get a faster start.. *sigh* this kind of seems along the same lines as that.

 

I always thought that it's BETTER for the tranny to keep it in neutral when your stopped...
I keep it clutched though, just because it feels more comortable to me... i need to have control...

 

You're right, Rex, but this thread concerns automatics.

 

lookit you manual guys, always hijacking our automatic threads

 

i know this is a lil off topic...but this friend of mine told me that its better to ease off the throttle when the gears are about to change for the automatics, and then get back on the gas pedal, once the gears have changed...i thought that this was really stupid and it would waste more gas since your constantly putting your foot off the gas and putting it back on again...does anyone know if this does anything, b/c i really dont see this being of any benefit

 

How would you know when to take your foot off the gas? There's no way you'd be able to know when the gear is about the change until it changes, and if you did let off the gas before it changed then it more than likely wouldn't shift and either stay in the gear it was in or downshift. The closest you could do is take your foot off the gas once it starts the upshift, but since it takes and automatic less than a second to shift you're just wasting your time. If you wanted to have complete control over your gears then you should've gotten a manual.

 

Most of you are too young to remember this, but the first Honda Accord automatics had a transmission that you had to "encourage" to shift. You would wind out first gear a little bit, then take your foot of the gas, and wait for a second. You would actually hear the transmission shift into second, then you would repeat for the next shift. They called it the "Hondamatic" transmission. It never caught on very well, understandably. Another type of "Hondamatic" was also tried in a couple of Honda's motorcycles, but it didn't particularly catch on there, either.

Also, way before that, some American cars of the 1940s or early 1950s had a type of transmission that worked exactly like that. Wind it out, let off, wait..."Clunk!"...continue. It was commonly called the "Clunkomatic" by drivers of that era.

That may sound ridiculous, but it is all true. My oldest brother had a car when I was a kid, which was a very old car even then (in the late 60's or early 70's), that had a clunkomatic. I wish I could tell you what kind of car it was, but I was too young to remember. I do remember him having a 40-something DeSoto, maybe that was the one.

EDIT: Found out about the DeSoto. Here it is if anyone cares. Copied and pasted here.

Clunkomatic was the name given by users to the mopar M4 and M6 Semi automatic transmissions. Named for the way they operated, Depress clutch and select transmisson range. Ounce the gear was selected, the clutch could be released with the brake applied and then the car could be driven without the clutch till the next it was reversed or till a diffeent forward range was selected. Basically the transmission is a dual range two speed, however low range is only needed for slippery conditions, heavy loads or real slow going, I think low range is only good for about 25 mph. However in high range the brake is released and the car is accelerated to about 18 to 20 mph, then the gas pedal is fully released, the governor and ignition inturupter do their thing, there is an audible clunk as the next gear is selected. The gas pedal can now be depressed again and the car will drive normally as a car in high gear. Slowing to a stop and holdig the brake on will allow the transmission to shift to the lower gear again, and be held against the brake, then accelorate away again repeating the release clunk drive sequence.

A word of caution, these transmission have no park, the emergency brake must function or the wheels need to be chocked to keep the car from rolling away. There is a fluid coupling between the engine and transmission that provides no compression braking whent he engine is shut off. These transmissions were a stop gap reaction to the GM dynaflow and Hydromatics. They led to the development of the fully automatic power flite and torque flite rasnmissions. The marketing name for the Desoto M6 semi automatic transmission was Tip Toe drive.
Chrysler called the same transmission Fluid torque drive, and Dodge called the Gyro Matics. Found in a few pickups of the era they were Truckomatics.

 

I would also turn off the radio and headlights so you wont wear out the battery. The alternator will not be putting out as many volts sitting at idle at the redlight so it will be hard on the battery with all the accesories on.

 

Im with Steeldog on this with regards to "encouragement" of the gear selection.

I have ifluenced by way of pedal modulation and speed the shifts all of the autos that I and my family have had. (cant do it on the new mercedes my dad is sporting, but then again I dont drive it much at all)

It is and was a very usefull technique. You could (once you got the feel for it) shift into higher gears through modulation quite easily. (my '01 civic did this extreemly well and our current Nissan Quest is not to shabby in that department either)

as far as our Fits go...well i dont know as I have a manual, and even though I drove the autos alot before I purchased my MT I did not get the
chance to employ it. (nor would I have thought of it anyway since on the
sport AT you can choose what you want, and when.)

 

Shifting to neutral is a waste of effort unless you're gonna be in one sot longer than a minute. And it saves no gas unless you shut the engine off and it stays off for longer than 2 minutes. Otherwise restart consumes more gas than you saved from not idling. Just leave the clutch disengaged otherwise.

 

no, you're putting more wear on your tranny than you are saving in gas

 

i agree with steeldog, sheesh, sheesh and thrice sheesh. i was told by the honda salesman to leave it in d or s at the lights and not to put it in neutral.

as well as not being able to respond quickly if in n, you might be on a hill, forget your in n and roll back and hit the car behind you.

as for idling speed: in d, stationary, mine idles at less than 500rpm when fully warm so there can't be much to gain from slipping into n.

also, staying in d or s with the brakes on means i can stop someone pushing into my lane by maintaining a human hair's width behind the car in front: as soon as i ease off the brakes i start moving; while the would-be queue-jumper has to bring up his clutch, find the bite, lower the handbrake etc etc.

finally, i got an auto cos i got fed up with all the effort involved in driving manuals in stop-start traffic so i feel why make life more difficult than it has to be?

 

I really don't get that line of reasoning. If that's the case, though, then you're putting the same amount of 'wear' on your transmission shifting from Park to Drive. Or from Drive to Reverse. Or from Park to Reverse....

Further, you're probably doing catastrophic damage if you shift to Drive when backing out of a parking space if you don't come to a complete stop and wait for 5 seconds before shifting to Drive.

OH T3H NOES!!!

Fender, qualify your statement with citation of factual source.



As for it being too much effort. WTF? I can easily flick the stick forward when stopping, then flick it back to Drive. Neither motion requires the release button to be actuated.

 

I think that whole sensation of rolling backwards would give you ample indication that you are, well, rolling backwards.

Anyway, I come from driving practically nothing but standard transmission vehicles. The only other automatic I had was a POS Chrysler LeBaron. I traded it after about 6 months. My other ~11 cars have been standard. I can tell when I'm rolling backwards, or forwards. Can't you?

 

I can kinda understand what DogSlobba was saying. If you were parked on a hill and took your foot off the brake and put it on the gas you would
just be reving the engine and starting to roll backwards which might take you off gaurd and then smack the person behind you. Just about all cars roll back a bit on a hill (AT or MT) but if you are not expecting it to continue...yeah I bet you could easily smack the car behind you. I think it has very little to do with you being able to tell that you are rolling backwards and more to do with you getting caught off gaurd.

 

I dont know how to quantify how much damage (or how he did for that matter) but... you cant say that you are putting the same amount of wear shifting from park to drive, or from drive to reverse. For one simple reason, you dont do it as often. (if this technique was employed often as seems to be suggested)

??? Catastrophic??? 5 secs...??? Who does that??? And where did that come from, that seemed random to say...yes/no??? (i have heard complete stop and maybe a sec...)
I hit dead reverse while going 15mph forward in my 86 civic AT (friend made a mistake while messing with me back in HS) and it made the most awsome yet horrid sound and all was ok. Lasted another 4 years till we sold it for BB.

not terribly worried about fendertweed's statement, but good luck trying to quantify that one...haaaaahahaa

 

Honestly, if you shift to neutral and then roll back and hit the car behind you, well, you're a dumbass, and need to pay more attention to what you're doing. My 16 years of driving standard transmission vehicles must have given me that wonderful ability to know what gear my car is in, as well as honed that sense of motion that tells me I'm rolling either forward or backward. I figure, if someone is absent minded enough to forget they shifted to neutral causing them to roll into another vehicle, they're too forgetful to remember to shift to neutral in the first place.