Two questions – first, I just got me an automatic. My natural inclination when stationary in traffic is to pop her into neutral rather than sitting in drive, to stop it from dragging. Is this good tekkers or am I wasting my time/wearing something else out?

Second, it’s too old to have the auto stop-start thingy – can I do this manually or will I kill it?

I’ve got a torque converter automatic. I only put it into neutral if I can see I’ll be stopped for a while, maybe more so at night if I think my brake lights will be a nuisance to cars waiting behind me.
I wouldn’t try to mimic a start-stop car manually. It’ll put more wear on your starter, but more importantly your alternator and battery may not be able to recover the charge used rapidly. Again though, if I know I’m going to be stopped for a couple of minutes or more I will turn the engine off.

First Q – my wife’s car is an old auto Polo, so like you, I always put it in neutral when stopped; though my reasoning is less to stop dragging, and more because I find it embarrassing for the reverse lights to flash on as you move from ‘P’ as it means you’re driving an auto shopping trolley…

Made me look into it a little more though.

More seriously, this suggests that changing between D and N causes ‘jolts’ (though thinking for a moment that’s a pretty big design flaw…)
https://www.cartalk.com/content/should-i-shift-neutral-when-im-stopped-light

This Pistonheads thread seems to have the answer:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=740905&hw=neutral&nmt=Stopping

Rospa said:
When stationary in traffic, even for many minutes, it is not necessary to move the gear lever into neutral because the torque converter absorbs the engine’s propulsion force but does not transmit it all to the gearbox. No wear is taking place. In fact, more wear will take place if you engage neutral then engage a drive gear when it is possible to move off.

Dunno about the second, but IIRC in the past on a car equipped w/o stop start it caused more emissions during startup than not, so the received wisdom was anything less than 5 mins not to turn off, anything more turn off.

if it was good to do it wouldn’t the automatic car do it…. automatically…?

Two questions – first, I just got me an automatic. My natural inclination when stationary in traffic is to pop her into neutral rather than sitting in drive, to stop it from dragging. Is this good tekkers or am I wasting my time/wearing something else out?

Second, it’s too old to have the auto stop-start thingy – can I do this manually or will I kill it?

1) It’s not worth it, when you hold your foot on the brake it disengages drive anyway.

2) Cars with stop-start generally have upgraded batteries and start motors plus the system doesn’t start to work until engine is up to temp as it would be less efficient over all.

Personally I’d just use it as the people who designed it intended it to be used.

it’s too old to have the auto stop-start thingy – can I do this manually or will I kill it?

if you use it in the sort of traffic where it makes a meaningful contribution to your emissions then doing it every time the auto-start-stop would, risks you getting some problems – the most immediate being running your battery down (especially if you’ve got lights on, wipers going, heater on etc). Starting the car takes quite a bit of power, and the engine needs to run to put that back in the battery, that is on top of the draw you have just for running the lights etc. Your starter motor might be drawing 200+ Amps for 1 second to start, but at round town speeds hopping from one set of lights to another might only get <60s with perhaps 2A to spare for charging battery – thats a net drain. The “tech” is smart enough to know if 1. you are drawing too much power; 2. the battery is running low; 3. the engine is cold and would prefer to be left running. On top of that s/stop tech seems to start the car quicker than a classic ignition key turn – so I suspect is doing something smarter (but I don’t know), and I wouldn’t be surprised if the starter/solenoids are better engineered for larger use cycles.

Of course if you can see you will be sitting for ages, turn it off, but I personally wouldn’t try to be as smart of s/stop tech.

Don’t be the prat sitting with their foot on the brake and blinding the driver behind them.

1) It’s not worth it, when you hold your foot on the brake it disengages drive anyway.

Not if it’s a torque converter box it doesn’t.

What about a ‘robot’ operated manual gearbox without a clutch pedal? (Like the Berlingo I’m picking up tomorrow has)

On our older torque converter auto just stop on the brake for short periods of time and neutral or park for longer stops but neither seem to bother the older auto. The newer ones with hold functions and stop start are much better

Don’t be the prat sitting with their foot on the brake and blinding the driver behind them.

Yes, that terrible epidemic of blindness that swept the country after the introduction of the automatic gearbox. Those hundreds of thousands of people, left sightless, all because of those laser beam rear lights. How ever will we cope?

On point 1, I put the transmission in N if I’m stopped for any length of time with the handbrake on, e.g. at traffic lights, partly because it seems the right thing to do but also because if I don’t do that and take my foot off the brake the engine restarts (see point 2), so whoever designed the stop-start must have intended you to drive that way.

On point 2, the stop-start not only has all sorts of battery and engine condition monitoring but it also stops the engine in the optimal position for restarting thus minimising load and wear etc. I wouldn’t try to emulate it, you’d probably be doing more harm than good.

Don’t be the prat sitting with their foot on the brake and blinding the driver behind them.

Suppose he (we) could let our foot off the brakes then?

Obvz.

Anyway, i’m still munching my way through 2 layers of Krispy Creme doughnuts from the other thread… I might continue into this thread too.

Always thought that it was better to use neutral in a torque converter as the fluid gets hot?

As there is still a little friction on the blades so the drive staff wants to move but can’t because the brakes are on. So that engery gets converted into heat rather than forward motion.

Sure a couple minutes stopped at the lights in the UK’s weather is not going to effect it. But stopped in very heavy traffic for 30mins might start to overheat the transmission oil and break it down?

Regarding the stop/start system. Yep as others say don’t try to manually emulate it. The batter, starter motor and alternator etc are not designed for the extra usage and will soon get damaged. Again if you are stuff in heavy traffic and know you wont be moving an inch for 10mins then yes switch it off but regular on / off / on will burn everything out pretty quickly.

We have a Fiat bus at work thats a clutchless affair, it’s bloody horrible to drive & you have to put it in neutral every time you stop otherwise it can overheat the torque converter/whatever. If you dont a womans voice from a speaker behind the drivers seat reminds you.
Driving it round Harrogate is an earache.

Its good practice to go to neutral in a torque converter box if you are going to be stopped for more than a minute or so , the engine produces far more emissions when its struggling to idle against the T converter , you will wear the gear linkage a bit doing that a lot – depending on the car it could be a problem , modern low end cars have quite poor linkages and some have crude plastic switches inline with the mechanism which wear quite fast, they were not designed for frequent use.
Volvo did have a neutral on a T converter box that was an electrical switch to neutral – it caused problems on the long run as raising the revs and switching the box to 1st whilst the revs were higher than idle stressed the box in the long run – Aisin Warner AW33 5 speed auto box. Volvo also neglected oil changes in service schedule unlike almost every other manufacturer who specified oil changes, inevitably limiting life of transmission.

Don’t be the prat sitting with their foot on the brake and blinding the driver behind them.

Oh the dilemma (for me)! Blind the driver behind with my lazer beam brake lights, or destroy the planet by taking my foot off brake and having the engine running! Woe!

Don’t think it really matters. There is some drag against the engine with a T converter box, but at idle speeds its not a lot and certainly it is not a lot compared to all the friction generated by the bearings and pistons sliding up and down in cylinders so not worthy of consideration…and is infinitely better than sitting there with the brake off holding the car against the drag of the T converter on an incline or some people in manual cars who sit in first gear slipping the clutch to hold the car on an incline.

In anycase when in neutral the stop start feature doesn’t appear to work on our car with a T converter box, so I just put in Park and apply the handbrake if its going to be a long stop, but if a short one just hold on the brake.

On a twin clutch it doesn’t matter as the clutches wont be engaged, but again holding the car on an include against the ‘drag’ of the box will be just like dragging your clutch on a manual and will be wearing out the clutches.

Don’t be the prat sitting with their foot on the brake and blinding the driver behind them.

Auto hold brake setting leaves the brake lights on after you take your foot off the brake pedal in (all?) BMWs

Personally I’d just use it as the people who designed it intended it to be used.

This. You’re overthinking it.

Go to America, land of the automatic. No-one ever uses Neutral or the handbrake, they just sit at lights with their foot on the brake. Often they don’t put the handbrake on when parked up even, just stick it in Park and let the gearbox hold the car. Driving over there I put the handbrake on at lights and my American friends looked at me like I’d grown a second head.

Don’t be the prat sitting with their foot on the brake and blinding the driver behind them.

Don’t be the prat looking out the windows in a queue of traffic. Use the time to send a text message / read facebook like everyone else does.*

*for the avoidance of doubt this is humour.

Auto hold brake setting leaves the brake lights on after you take your foot off the brake pedal in (all?) BMWs

And VWG cars

I agree with scotroutes about the brake lights thing, especially if it’s dark.

**** will be **** though…..

Auto hold brake setting leaves the brake lights on after you take your foot off the brake pedal in (all?) BMWs

And VWG cars

Add Mercedes to that list…….

Cheers folks – I was the **** who sat with his foot on the brake, but I shan’t be doing that now I know how violently anti-social it is! 🙂

My natural inclination when stationary in traffic is to pop her into neutral rather than sitting in drive, to stop it from dragging.

They’re designed to be held on the foot brake.

Popping into neutral causes more wear, as above. My (torque converter) auto specifically covered this in the manual. My wife’s car has DSG which effectively goes into neutral by itself.

Just don’t be the prat who goes into park, giving everyone behind a flash of reversing light as you stop and then again as you move off…

I didn’t realise it flashed the reverse lights when moving into P then back into drive. Everyday is a school day. Is this in most modern cars? (BMW 8 speed ZF here)

The reason I go into P at night-time is to not dazzle drivers behind, otherwise I just sit on the brake (and most of the time if the engine is hot the stop-start cuts in anyway and the engine isn’t running). It does seem however that there isn’t an ideal solution (if you’re bothered about dazzling drivers behind.. given how bright a lot of newer brake lights are).

1) If I go into P then I have to apply the foot brake momentarily to get back into drive which takes a second a must look weird from behind (and the reverse lights come on?) so not ideal.

2) If I leave foot on foot brake I dazzle drivers so not ideal.

3) If I put the handbrake (manual) on in D the car will just pull away against it so not ideal.

4) If I go into neutral I can put handbrake on but then I have to do the same as noted above in 1 to get back into driving.. so not ideal.

Think I’m just going to dazzle people from now on in TBH!

Scoroutes’ “Brigtest rear light” thread:

Brightest rear light?

As I wish to be seen from as far away as possible I’ll keep my foot on the brake and hope it’s Scotroutes sitting in the car behind. 🙂

I must confess, I don’t think I’ve ever been dazzled by brake lights, and I’m the sort of chap who moans about people forgetting to turn their fog lights off.

I didn’t realise it flashed the reverse lights when moving into P then back into drive. Everyday is a school day. Is this in most modern cars? (BMW 8 speed ZF here)

It’ll flash the reversing lights if you have to go through Reverse to get from Park to Drive (because, er, you’re putting it in Reverse). That will obviously depend on the layout of your gear shift but I think they’re all pretty much a standard, aren’t they?

Park is a wee button on top of the lever and then D is pull back on the lever so does not hit reverse (the lever always returns to a set position in the middle after engaging Drive or Reverse so does not stay ‘back’ or ‘forward’ as such when in drive or reverse. Hope that makes sense!

It’ll flash the reversing lights if you have to go through Reverse to get from Park to Drive (because, er, you’re putting it in Reverse). That will obviously depend on the layout of your gear shift but I think they’re all pretty much a standard, aren’t they

Nah, they don’t do this anymore as gearboxes are electrically or hydraulically shifted these days. In the olden days where the gear shifter was a mechanical linkage and moved through each gate as you moved to park then it would obviously actuate the revers microswitch as you moved through reverse. These days you press a button on the selector, that tells a computer somewhere you want to go into park and the computer commands the gearbox actuators and it goes directly into park.

People complaining about fog lights annoy me more than the people who forget to turn them off these days. It seems to have become endemic. The only truly blinding lights on cars are the massive glowing white ones on the front. Those who complain about brake lights. Well…

I always put my toque converter box in neutral by the way. I’m not sure how much benefit it has, given the small amount of power going through it compared to when it’s moving, but it makes me feel like I’m putting less strain on it and using less fuel.

Those who complain about brake lights. Well…

Sorry for being, well….

Not all people are the same and my eyes are pretty sensitive to light. I takes me ages some mornings to open my eyes fully if the curtains are open and I wear sunglasses the majority of the time when driving even in pretty dull weather as they prevent me getting headaches. When sitting in traffic or at traffic lights for a while at night it’s quite uncomfortable if the person in front has their brake lights on constantly, I sometimes have to close my eyes and wait for them to set off as I can tell the glare has disappeared when they take their foot off the brake, even with my eyes closed.

Again apologies for being different to you.

If you take that long to revover from glare I suggest you shouln’t be driving at night, ads678. Edit to add: seriously, if brake lights are uncomfortable what happens when you get full beam in the face on a winding road, as you invariably will at some point?

These days you press a button on the selector, that tells a computer somewhere you want to go into park

Not on mine you don’t, but it’s nearly 10 years old so not really from these days! P is a lever position, there’s no button. The positions are P,R,N,D so however it’s actuated I have to physically shift the lever through R to get from P to D.

Stil lots of PRND shifts around. I can’t get out of P without pressing the brake on mine.

I’ve always been led to believe it’s bad practice to use Park while in traffic. Reason being that if you’re in any kind of accident (someone running into the back of you, for example), it’s likely to cause far more expensive damage than if it were in Drive or Neutral.