F430 F1 Newbie Questions

From the owner’s manual:


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The F1 will select a gear if you are in neutral and upshift. Unusually its about 2-3 gears above where you would place it on your own.

When coming to a stop from speed I just typically shift into neutral than break.

 

why would you go down a hill in neutral?

in neutral you have deprived yourself of one level of control over your vehicle.

do you do this in a manual gearbox car?
do you do this in an automatic??

 

well, in my opinion this is a very bad habit.
as i said you deprive yourself of a means to power the car suddenly if you needed to, which is basically unsafe.
you are also not using all of your means of deceleration, also unsafe.

 

Honestly..just drive it in automatic.

 

I throw the clutch in and will coast downhill and also to stoplights I know I’m going to miss…..no big deal, no loss of control.

If I ever get this stupid Jeep in I have on order (190 days and counting), I’ll be doing a fair share of coasting…. since it only gets 13 mpg.

 

you can coast in gear.
coasting in neutral is just poor driving. sorry

 

Meh, will continue to do it…..and very confident in my driving skills thank you.

 

No way. The F1 auto mode is crap at best. The up shifts are super slow. Its great for my wife who refuses to drive manual mode and is afraid car will die on her.

I used to drive with priority on saving clutch life. That includes what you are doing: going into neutral at stops, upshifting slower, letting computer downshift only etc. After 10K miles added by yours truly, i can assure you the F430 F1 system is more robust than all the crying you read about on here. A good honest Mechanic will be able to fix whatever happens to the F1 system. It can get pricey but hey, its part of the game. I drive race mode 99% of the time. Shifts are faster and love the backfires on downshifts. If possible, go for a drive with a more experienced fellow f430 F1 owner. Congrats on joining the Fcar family. Enjoy!

 

Not sure about a Jeep but any modern fuel injected car stops using any fuel when you take your foot off the gas. So coasting will save you nothing.

 

??? What do you think coasting is? Of course your foot wouldn't be on the gas.

 

In gear or out of gear coasting. Same, no fuel being used. Foot off the gas = throttle body closed, injectors stop working.

 

Not the same......maybe physics down under are different.

Go try an experiment, get to 60 mph and do this once each:
1. Leave in gear, take foot off gas, see how long it takes to coast down to 20 mph
2. Do the same thing but take car into N

In North America, it will take longer to coast down to 20 if the car is in neutral

Sorry to the OP, this is my last post on this dumb thread....cheers everyone

 

To each their own, but I’m not sure of any advantage in putting the car in neutral down a hill, or with coasting. You definitely have less control without engine braking, potentially unsettled chassis while freewheeling and needing to turn, and the inability to hop back on the throttle if necessary.

Imagine if you were to apply the above to riding a motorcycle where situational awareness and chassis control/grip are paramount. It’s totally unsafe. Yikes.

 

Auto or manual doesn't matter - it's bad practice to be in neutral when moving.

 

If the goal is to prevent wear on the clutch then shifting into neutral when coasting to a stop from under 15mph might be understandable. From any higher speed you would want to keep the clutch engaged such that you can select the next proper gear should conditions change.
I found the Ferrari F430 system to really dislike manually shifting into neutral and confuse it. This is just my reporting on a 2005 and best to just keep in Auto. Perhaps this was improved in 2009 cars. I just got rid of it all w manual swap.