Lately I have been coasting in neutral. I thought the car could coast a long way before, but in neutral it is ridiculous. Obviuosly, I have concerns on the wear and tear of moving between D and N while moving. Here are the issues as I see them.

FE
Pro - You definately see an increase in your around town mpg.

Con - You get no charge coasting and apparently no charge braking in neutral (I have no idea on the braking, do you?).


Wear and Tear
Pros
There is no drivetrain lurch.
It even appears that there is rev-matching. Though, I have only done this at speeds of 35mph or less. I think it's not that the engine revs to your wheels speed, it's more the nature of the infinite gears of the CVT. {anyone jump in here and correct me on this}

Hypothetical Pros
Hey, the car lets you do it, so it can't be bad, right?

Hypothetical Cons
Your transmission will fall out, the SA will be able to tell what you've done, and void your warranty.

Safety
Pro - I am only doing this at lower speeds around town.
Con - If I turn a corner to find a truck barreling towrds me, it will take a split second longer to get out of the way.

 

Con - Autostop does not work in Neutral.

I am thinking if you are able to coast in Neutral you may as well do an EV Glide which is effectively the same thing but no potential issues with the continually shifting from Neutral to Drive.

My 2 cents.

Best Regards.

 

I think AS does work in N.

Also, if EV Glide is turing the engine off while coasting, you still need to be in N to restart the engine and then pop it into D, right?

 

Hmm yup you are right... I typically put it in Neutral when I stop in my driveway and then turn the engine off before putting in Park. My apologies.

Respecting EV glide....

If I am understanding correctly you are liking the Neutral coasting to avoid the degenerative breaking and therefore increasing your FE.

What I suggest is that you can get the same effect.. or actually better FE.. by gently depressing the pedal until you are in an EV glide which effectively reduced your FE to 0. I would think that the EV glide would be more efficient than coasting in Neutral as your engine would still remain running in Neutral and the valves would still be open in a "Neutral glide".

I am not 100% sure as I have never tried this but I am 100% sure of the EV glide.

Cheers!

 

Oh... gotcha. I have only hit the EV glide a couple of times, and it was on level ground. I don't think it'll work going downhill, but I should try to engage it more often.

 

I think that's correct. I know glide does not use fuel. I reset my trip B at the top of a big hill a while back and used glide to get to the bottom. The hill was .6 miles long but when I got to the bottom my consumption was still "--" so I didn't use any gas on the way down. Once I started using gas, the instant FE was pegged at 150mpg for a while before it slowly fell to 90mpg 10 miles further down the road. I even switched to metric so I could see the 1.2L/100km (!) reading when it was pegged at 150mpg.

The only advantage to using neutral instead of glide would be if you could "glide" further in neutral because of less drag. This wouldn't surprise me since it seems like my Outback coasts a whole lot better than the HCH glides (although, it's also 1,000 pounds heavier). Still, I'm more worried about the CVT than any other part of the car so I don't plan on putting any added stress on it.

The real trick it to coast in auto stop. I was able to hit 8mph yesterday and coast about .1 miles at a long backup 4-way stop sign yesterday. It was perfect luck though--lots of cars going my way and rolling through the sign and no one coming the other way. One of these days, I'm going to stop on a long hill and see how fast I can get going in auto stop (before coming to a complete stop and letting the engine start again).

 

Oooooo, the AS Coast... I can only do the AS Creep for a few feet.

Yes, I should prob try to make more use of intended FE savers.

Still, with no CVT shudder, I wonder if I am doing no harm. It's not hard to make the CVT pop in a scary way. Let the car roll back in Park and then put it in Drive. THAT sounds bad on the CVT, but so far the coasting in and out of Drive doesn't.

I really am looking for someone to say, it's definately bad and here's why...

Thanks for the inputs so far.

 

Next time I drive the HCH, I'll attempt the same hill as I noted above in neutral and see if there is any gas consumption on the way down (indicating that the valves are open). If there is, then coasting would be "bad" because you would be using more gas than gliding. However, from a transmission standpoint, I don't think anyone here would be able to say definatively one way or the other. Besides, would you really risk (what I'm guessing is) a $3,000 transmission based on advice you read on the Internet?!?

Edit: If you look at the bottom of this thread, the forum automatically finds similar threads. There are several old threads about neutral vs. glide that are worth a read. I didn't read anything conclusive either way, but they are still interesting...

 

Yes, handy little feature.

It's funny that on the Instant Trip meter, it appears you are getting less mpg, but on the Trip B Meter it shows you are doing better with coasting in N.

It's probably an endless debate, with no concrete answers. I was just getting sick of 35mpg on short, hilly, in-town trips. I can easily get 40 with this coasting technique. I should also mention that I pop it back into D as I need to start braking, so as to be able to capture that regen.

I guess I will be experimenting.

Thanks all, Ian

FWIW: From the OM
Use neutral if you
need to restart a stalled engine, or if
it is necessary to stop briefly with
the engine idling. Shift to the Park
position if you need to leave your
vehicle for any reason. Press on the
brake pedal when you are moving
the shift lever from neutral to
another gear.

 

How short is your commute? Is it possible that you are getting better FE in neutral because you are focusing on mileage more than you normally do?