At 15:51 07-05-98 -0700, Katherine Lee wrote: >Don't think this is going to be of much help, but your suggestion of >"damage to the transmission" reminds me of my teenage years, when I drove >an old 67 Parisienne (nicknamed by my friends as "The Boat"), handed down >to me from my father. In order to save gas, I used to coast to a stop by >popping the shifter into neutral and applying the brake (there WERE no >hills in Winnipeg), when one time I inadvertently popped the shifter TOO >FAR and ended up jerking the automatic transmission to a halt by going into >reverse while the car was still rolling forward. Ouch. I recently drove a Volvo 850 Turbo for a week. It had an onboard computer that would indicate the fuel consuption in litres/100 kms. For those of you not familiar with measuring fuel comsumption in l/100kms, the lower the number the better the fuel economy (this is the opposite of measuring mpgs). I was shocked at how high the fuel consumption went on normal acceleration (30-35) and on aggressive acceleration the numbers went higher still (40-50) but when coasting to a stop, especially on a slight downhill grade, in a high gear (4th or 5th) the numbers went near zero (1-5). The overall rate of fuel consumption, after a week of "spirited" city driving, for this vehicle is about 14 litres/100kms (about the same as my Westy). The bottom line, disengaging the motor would seem to save very little and could cause extra wear and tear. *** Warning *** This is MHO and I don't know anything (that's what people tell me) :-) Kelly Bauman Delta, BC '91 Westy |
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