Longer route with steady speed vs. short stop n go route

[dirtydave]

are you neutral coasting in your auto?

[dongs]

Originally Posted by dirtydave

are you neutral coasting in your auto?

No. The black magic slushbox weirds me out a bit so I leave it in gear for coasts. At higher speeds, I presume when the tc is locked, the engine rpm coincides with the vehicle speed; but when I coast at lower speeds the rpm drops to idle, around 550rpm.
Boy I sure miss having a standard trans.

[awcook]

Weird that yours drops to idle at low speeds. Mine DFCO / engine brakes down to 17 MPH while in gear! Only time RPMs drop to idle is at gear shift points, and even then it's above idle. Only time it really does go into "neutral" while in D is when I release my foot after I floor it (up to 5500 RPMs then foot off and goes to neutral, foot back on it goes into 5th, pretty cool I think). I agree with you on the whole shifting to N in an auto, kinda creeps me out too. I feel like in order to make the tranny last longer, you can't do neutral coasting in an auto.

Fortunately, for us, we can coast longer in gear than if we had a manual tranny. Since we have taller gears we will not be engine braking as hard, and we will also still be in DFCO (I coast from 50 to 35 between my house and the redlight which is about 1/2 a mile using DFCO). I don't know about your car, but the same car I have with the standard trans has significantly shorter 5th gears than in the auto trans.

[dongs]

The dfco is a good reason to keep it in gear while coasting, even if you have to give it a quick shot of gas if you bleed off too much speed. As close to EOC as an auto trans can get!