To coast...or not to coast?

Hi All,

I drove manual transmissions most my life. Over the years I got in the habit of make use of the vehicle's momentum and weight.

In parking lots, I drive with almost no foot on gas pedal.
When I see a red light on the horizon instead of gunning it and slam the brake last second, I let go of gas and it coast to almost stop.
In traffic jam, i put the car in N and let go of brake to inch forward (if slight downhill).
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.
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These all come natural to me with my understanding of rather simple manual transmission and powertrain setup. But now I'm learning about AT with the Torque Converter and all the sensors and software programming that goes into it, I wonder if my old habits are doing more harm than good?

Your input is appreciated!

 

I wouldn’t put it into neutral. The way Automatic transmissions are programmed nowadays, they pretty much try to eek out maximum efficiency, so it’s automatically doing what you would be doing anyway. Putting it into and out of neutral whenever slowing down, as a matter of habit, would probably reduce the life of the transmission.

Same goes for manually shifting it up and down each gear all the time. Occassionally is fine, but not as a matter of habit. The S mode should be viewed as a way to select a limit to the number of gears it uses.

 

No coast.

 

Put in DRIVE, drive it to your destination, put in PARK. If the light is red a 1/4 mile down the road, get off the gas, but leave it in DRIVE. Any coasting should be done in DRIVE. The tranny will help slow the vehicle.

 

You don’t have to worry about coasting in the 4Runner. As soon as you take your foot off the brake this breadbox comes to a screeching halt. Unlike something like a Prius. I used to own one, those things will coast for miles.

 

But seriously, don't do this to automatic transmissions.

 

Thanks everyone for your inputs. To clarify, I DO coast in D not N. My question is if I drive with my foot off the gas pedal, either to slow down or when I don't need speed (like in a parking lot), would that cause any more stress to the transmission?

 

These are some bizarre questions.

It's prefectly fine to be coasting while in drive.

 

why to drive in D not on highway? S3 and sometimes S4 in a city.

 

Is this your first automatic? Every single driver ever is bound by duty, honor, and mostly by self-preservation to lift the gas pedal when they don’t need forward thrust. So automatics have to be designed to operate without the gas pedal being pressed. The torque converter is what is essentially used to disconnect the hard-link between the engine and driveshafts…much like when you push down the clutch pedal on a manual trans when slowing to a stop.