Driving a Manual Trans Downhill

All my vehicles are standard. It really depends what is considered a hill, the weather conditions, or even how lazy I am. If it's a SLIGHT downhill grade for a mile, I might be lazy and toss it in neutral. If I'm driving in inclement weather, or coming down the mountain from snowboarding, or am on any hill requiring braking -- then no way do I take it outta gear.

If you are leave it in neutral and will eventually have to use the brakes.. you can always put it back in gear.

 

It is good , no doubt .

I no longer care , coast away .

 

......no. My new goal is to never coast

 

Or you leave it in gear close the engine of a press a bit the gaz ...

So the engine think compress less dont use gaz and still get power stearing because the enginse still turn ....

Haha seriously ... even if in neutral then engine run a let say 1000 rpm and if you stay in gear at 2500

I'm not sure wich one gonna use more gaz ... because in neutrale then engine need more gaz to turn ...
since in gear the hill help the engine to turn so he do not need as much energie to keep it running even if you give a bit of gaz ...

And let say it's a good hill ... I mean a GOOD one ... you can put it lets say in 6 lower your rpm around 1500 and you probably gonna still take some speed without even giving gaz ... you might have to press the brake ... in this situation ... will take less gaz to just leave it in gear since the weight of the truck already turn the engine and the engine do not need a lot of gaz (energie) to keep running ...
You might go a bit faster in neutral but in general going faster (might not, might be slower then with the engine on gear on idle ...) is not the best way to save fuel ...

 

omg, please spell gas with an "s" or take it out of your name that your from Canada

 

Same thing here being a DC driver also. Keep it in gear and save the brakes.....

 

LOL

 

I am almost never in neutral and often upshift going down hill, as long as it is not too steep, to avoid the engine from reving too much. I'm not sure if this is proper or not, it is just what I do. All this is making me think of a new question that I'm sure someone on here can answer for me: Are RPM's always the main factor to fuel economy regardless of what gear you are in? Does, for example, 4th gear supply more fuel to the engine than 2nd gear? Because often times when I upshift to lower the RPM's (in an attempt to conserve fuel) to, say 1200, often times the engine is lugging, and not sounding very efficient at all. Conversely, when I'm operating at say, 2000 RPM's the engine sounds like it's running great. I guess my question is is lower RPM's always more fuel economical, even if the engine is lugging?

 

Why not just hold the clutch in when you coast, but leave it in gear? That way you have both ... coasting with engine braking when you need it?

 

spinning the throwout bearing any more than necessary isn't good IMO.

 

Yeah I've heard this can cause excessive wear on the clutch too.

 

listen to your dad and leave it in gear.

 

ya brakes are overrated anyways

 

Tried both ways today on my 50 km trip. Using the scanguage, you guys are right about it.....sort of. The engine uses the same amount of fuel when its either in gear or coasting. I didn't know that so its good to know. BUT, leaving it in gear has a lot more drag and you lose momentum a lot faster, making you need to accelerate more then just coasting. So in the end I think it is better mpg wise to coast, but not on smaller/short hills where you can't gain enough momentum to coast far.
That concludes our lesson for today folks. NOW GAZ UP!

 

There have been some good points made... I just fueled up for the first time so I'm going to keep track of my MPG's with both driving styles... Every MPG matters at almost $4 a gallon..

 

lol still love that talk. Im at 5.21 a gallon right now, so its life or death for me I guess!

 

You could always try moving to a good country, maxpower29. That might help lower the cost of gas

 

Meh

 

I coast a lot in neutral. I've got a few spots around my house where I coast for 1-2 miles without ever touching the accelerator. Leaving it in gear may be more fuel efficient in an instant, but the fact is you will be back on the throttle long before I'm done coasting. I'm one of the very few people on this site who has ever gotten over 30 MPG's out of their Tacoma's...and I've done it for 3 FULL tanks of gas...not "oh I got 20 MPG for this 50 mile stretch of road".

 

ya well Im sure I save the money x10 in health care and NOT having to buys guns......just sayin