Taking out of gear at stop without using clutch

There will be no damage to the gearbox if the teeth of the gears are unladen when you knock the shifter into neutral. In other words if you are neither accelerating or decelerating but just coasting, with the engine RPM just right for your road speed, slipping into neutral is harmless. Mind you, you won’t be doing the clutch any favors at that point, just the thrust bearing. You see the clutch is there to match up any discrepancies in RPM between the rear wheels and the engine - which is why one tears it up doing racing starts - and thus if your RPM is perfect for your car’s speed in that gear there is no discrepancy, and thus no clutch wear if you depress it.
With all that said you will save on left shoe leather, so if you wear expensive loafers and have a good ear for your engine note, well then, go for it.
Kram

 

Very accurate response.

 

i think the other thing you are missing (especially going out of 4th or 5th) is the assistance the engine gives you in stoping the car - can you say extra brake wear. If you are in 4th and don't down shift you are still doing a decent pace putting it in neutral before a stop. I think in certain cars this also effects the brake servo boost

 

I've been "knocking it out of gear" forever. Once your ear tells you it's safe, it just much easier that messing with the clutch -- especially if you're about to sit at a stoplight for a few minutes. It's not the clutch that would wear out so much as the T/O bearing and your leg muscles. (Actually the T/O wouldn't give a rats "butt" while the pedal is on the floor)

This technique, sanctioned by me, is known as the "lazy, cheap, clutch-fearing" technique.

The converse is also true -- match revs properly, and you can shift into any gear you'd like without any gnashing or grinding. I used to do that all the time in an old P-bug when the clutch was getting down to fumes.

-Daniel


p.s. This might be safe on the mechanicals of the car, but any experienced driver will attest that it's not "safe" with regard to other traffic on the roads.

 

latly i have noticed alot of manual related questions. i'm suprised no one has mentioned the technique of shifting with a clutch. my grandfather who drove trucks commercially for 40 yrs learned that technique. i do realize that the trucks use straight cut gears.

 

Personally, I would much rather use my brakes to slow down my car than my engine/transmission. Brakes are much cheaper.

 

amen to that, VS. money shift anyone!

 

not that the owners manual is always right or that it always has the owners interest in mind but mine says to use the proper downshifting technique and not to coast the car in neutral to a stop, btw I don't think using the engine to stop causes additional wear, it just provides additional resistance in stopping as well as helping the brake servo, YMMV

 

these newfangled carbon jobbies sure ain't!



doody.

 

reason for not coasting in any situation is lack of car control, you have no control if you need to get going again. braking then down shifting is not using the engine to brake assist which can be costly if you're going to fast for a given gear. but poping into nuetral than coasting to a stop is dangerous and illeagal.

 

Please reference which state & motor vehical/civil/penal code you're referring to.

 

CA Vehical code sec 21710
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&group=21001-22000&file=21700-21718

 

I believe they are talking about down hill grades, usually of some length. It is these cases where engine braking is preferable to reduce overheating the brakes themselves.

 

Wow... those granola-crunching left-coast liberals really got me !! A whole law about which gear to use?!?! I guess they've already taken away my right to smoke, so now they're working on my right to operate the car in neutral.


I stand corrected. (but now even more wary of California...)

 

Most of those laws go back a long way. Remember, older cars were rather prone to brake fade, and it was fairly common for trucks to lose their brakes on long, steep grades (ever notice those run-outs on some of the Interstates for run-away trucks?). So requiring the use of the engine to take some of the load off the brakes made sense.

The general comment that brakes are cheaper than engines/transmissions is often heard around the race track. On the track, you use the brakes to stop and downshift to keep the engine in its proper power range so you can be ready to accelerate. You don't use the engine to brake (that's the reason we use heel-toe shifting, to match revs, not to slow the car down with the engine).

For every day driving, it probably doesn't matter that much, as long as you're not putting severe strain on the engine by downshifting to radically from speed without matching revs.

Regards,
Steve W.

 

Neither a mechanic nor a lawyer, but when coasting to a stop while still in gear most cars we owned over the years seemed easy enough to make the clutchless move into neutral at slow speeds. I try not to make this a practice as I would not want to have the car begin to involuntarily pop out of gear. Especially as the shift lever is heavily sprung (to the middle of the "H").

My guess is that most U.S states have a little law that says that you cannot operate (coast) a vehicle in neutral while moving; control & whatnot. But if you think that's a pain, when I took my UK driver's test years ago the stoplight/stopsign procedure was: approach stop in gear, come to a stop and shift into neautral (not quite "both feet in") and then engage the hand brake. On green, put car in first, disengage hand brake, release clutch, proceed forward. This was regardles of terrain, although it proved to be good hill stop practice.

 

this would explain why the new jags have an elctronic parking brake that can be set at a stop and when the car is moved it'll unbrake itself automatically.

 

Mechanically, i thought it was damaging to the ring and pinion gear in the differential to be coasting in neutral as these gears need some 'drag' to operate correctly (backlash?) and with minimal wear to the teeth.

 

KRAM - Excellent answer.

Yeah, I'm guilty of the same thing....If I'm creeping up to a light slowley and still in 4th I'll neutral it without the clutch. The key is to know when the rpm is OK...for me it's a gentle feel with one finger on the shifter and she will just slide into neutral with no effort. It's not to reduce clutch, T/O or slave wear - it's just being lazy.

Re: Shifting gears W/O clutch. Reminds me when I broke a clutch cable in my P-Turbo. Early Sunday morning on my way to church I was 25 miles from home when the clutch cable broke. Drove home with no clutch. At a stop light I would kill the engine, throw it into 1st and start the car in 1st gear. It would "hobble" enough to get going, then I match the RPM to up shift. The higher the gear, the easier to do. A few grinds here and there, but got home OK. Of course I would never do this in the F-Car.

 

As Spasso alluded to:

21710. The driver of a motor vehicle when traveling on down grade
upon any highway shall not coast with the gears of such vehicle in
neutral.

(Remind anyone else of On The Road?)

Yeah, it's a no-no on the Grapevine, but on reasonably level surface? N/P.