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Originally Posted by EcoCivic
Another curious thing I meant to ask about is the effects of travelling with the engine off and the trans in neutral. I always thought manual transmissions were fine coasting or being towed engine on or off and autos should only coast or be towed with the engine running, but my car's owners manual recommends against flat towing and says if it must be done to keep speed low and distance as short as possible, not to exceed 35 MPH or 50 miles I believe. No distinction is made for auto or manual transmission, although that may be an oversight.
I understand why towing an automatic transmission with the engine off would be bad since without the engine running there's no oil being pumped around to lubricate and cool components, but I am almost certain my transmission is simply splash lubricated so I don't see why it would matter? Unless the input shaft needs to be spinning to splash the oil around.
This doesn't matter much to me since I leave the engine idling while coasting, I'm just curious.
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What car are we talking about again? I've heard of manual transmissions that have a lubrication pump (or maybe splasher) that needs the input shaft spinning. But I understand those are rare and mostly used on larger vehicles (Pickups and SUV's).
Generally speaking the gears should all still be spinning and getting lubbed up as the bottom ones dip down into the oil. The input shaft would be still with the gears spinning around it. But some of those gears would be spinning at several thousands of RPM's. What's a thousand or two more from the engine being off?