NO Damage to auto transmission by EOC

[ModelE]

Okay... my 2004 Nissan frontier 4x4 is on the list of cars that can be flat towed, but only when the 4wd selector switch (in my case, shifter) is in "neutral"... so... yeah... i have to shift through "4wd Hi" and "4wd Lo" to get to the "N" on the shifter, and i dont think that it has shift-on the fly capabilities... and even if it did i wouldnt want to go through them going ~50.

any ideas?

I have EOC-ed in neutral (the neutral on the automatic tranny, not the 4wd selector) in the truck before, but i got immediately nailed with the consequences.. after doing it three times, the truck wouldn't start when i turned the key back, so i had to coast it to the side of the road and get my friends to come give me a jump... and the battery is a little over a year and a half old, with no extreme usage of it. i havent EOC the truck since then

[slurp812]

Originally Posted by adrive7

I tried EOCing in my 2005 Chevy Cobalt once, and despite it being on that dinghy towable list, I won't be trying it again. I was on a long down-sloping stretch of country road with nobody around, so I popped it into neutral and shut the engine off. I was rolling at about 40mph, brakes and steering felt ok, so I kept going until I got to the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. I kicked the engine back on so I had my power brakes back and came to a stop at the sign.

When I pulled away from the stop the car was acting like a manual trans. with very poor clutch work. Shifts were hard and jerky, and coming to a stop the RPMs would drop to around 500 shaking the whole car before it popped out of gear. It did this the rest of the way home. The car sat for about 30 minutes before I needed it again and the problem was gone, I think it just drained too much fluid from the torque converter, and it never got a chance to refill, or something. I don't know all that much about transmissions. It hasn't been a problem since then (3 months).

That does sound VERY strange! Prolly pissed off something computer-wise.
Lack of fluid in the torque converter would just not want to go.

[Christ]

Check to find out if your 4WD system is vacuum actuated or electronically actuated... if it's either, it would be VERY easy to make a switching system to put it in neutral without shifting the lever at all.

[i_am_socket]

Originally Posted by slurp812

That does sound VERY strange! Prolly pissed off something computer-wise.
Lack of fluid in the torque converter would just not want to go.

That sounds like my car after disconnecting the battery. A few drives later it all gets back to normal. If it did that after EOCing, I wouldn't do it again either.

[Doofus McFancypants]

The only experience i had with EOC an Auto was with a rental car. Comming down off a bridge to an exit - shift to N - keyed car off - then back on ( just like the nissan) - engine dies and i coasted probably about 1 mile at about 60 MPH.
near the end i could smell the fluid cooking so i quickly restarted the car - exited and drove on site streets to keep overall speeds down.
Maybe it was the car ( Fusion V6) maybe it was the Speed ( i was at 60) or something else. But i convinced myself NOT to try it again.

Steve

[Christ]

*bangs head* Dammit! Should have got the insurance!

[RandomFact314]

Yeah i just looked, my car says NO to flat towing so i guess no ECO for me, but I don't mind, I like zipping around in neutral all day anyways and not having to start my car over and over.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by HypermilingNoob

Yeah i just looked, my car says NO to flat towing so i guess no ECO for me, but I don't mind, I like zipping around in neutral all day anyways and not having to start my car over and over.

I started checking out some mild EOC in Cara... never more than a few hundred feet, always at low speed (< 30 MPH), while coming to a stop at a redlight or something.

So far, based solely on observation, I think I've actually gotten worse MPG's. I'm only going on my average mileage by the time I get to 1/2 tank on the gauge, which isn't wholly accurate, but so far it's off by about 50 miles.

If I had to chance a guess, I'd say I'm either getting close to the same old 27.5 ish, or maybe a little less.

Anyone care to submit some analysis of the situation?

[99LeCouch]

Which vehicle, the GP or the van? The GP's, and anything with the 3800, hate EOC with a passion. The transmission isn't designed for it, and there are a lot of systems that get stopped along with the engine when you key-off. I hear the ABS doing a self-check every single time mine starts, so I don't stop the engine for anything under 30 seconds.

My fiancee's Honda Fit AT can be flat-towed. I'm looking forward to trying EOC in that car. If she lets me.

[Christ]

Not with Granny, with Cara... the first time I thought about trying it with Granny, we found out that she's not the most reliable starter... solenoid problem that I don't care to fix.

Granny also has a problem with her "Range selector switch" and some EGR issues, neither of which, again, do I care about.