Shifting AT to neutral okay?

[hyperhyper]

Just bought at 2001 Jetta with autotrans. On my old Saturn, I often shifted the AT into neutral at highway speeds - probably 30 times or so on downhills while driving to work; it always slid smoothly back into 4th gear. Will I do any harm to the Jetta tranny doing that? Want to ensure proper lubrication, etc..

 

[dieseldorf]

Purpose, if any?


Welcome aboard, Hyper!

 

[TDICADDGUY]

If your shift interlock is working correctly you'll have to tap the brake pedal to get it back into gear. Mine sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

No real purpose to this though, if you let off the gas and let it coast, zero fuel will be used.

 

[Spoolin'Jim]

On many autos, unless you are going very fast, they still inject fuel. My wifes VUE is this way. Even coasting off the highway while in gear, scan guage only showed 4xmpg while coasting. Putting it into neutral would bumb it up to 60 and allow us to coast longer. As far as the shift interlock, I believe that only prevents park to another gear not neutral to drive. All the cars I've ever driven where like that. And on doing harm to a jetta trans, no clue unfortunatly.

 

[hyperhyper]

My purpose is to conserve fuel. I know it uses zero if left in gear, but on long or steep downhills, I can gain more speed than with even a little drag. Saturn used about .36GPH of gas. TDI uses about .1GPH. It's a balance, I guess, about how long the hill has to be for a TDI to get better mileage free wheeling at .1GPH rather than coasting in gear (at a slower speed) at .0GPH.

 

[dieseldorf]

There have been some knock-down-drag-out battles on this topic. I wonder if someone can find the most recent which included some hypothetical conservation discussion, etc.

 

[97pssat04golfTDIs]

I agree with hyper hyper there is mpg to be gained when using neutral on long down hills. First welcome to the club I see you are a very new member. I have and auto and also use the same technique as you on many areas of my daily commute, no problems here. I would just recommend giving the car a second after you return it to drive before you step on the fuel pedal and be gentle with it. Your car has the 4 speed 01M auto tranny that does not have the best reputation for durability. The auto locking does not happen until you are under 1 MPH or almost to a stop so watch for this if you are gently rolling forward in bumper to bumper traffic.
I will say both leaving it in gear is best when you know you have a stop at the bottom of a hill, but if it is a long gradual down hill like I have on some sections of my daily commute neutral is the best choice. Know your route try different approaches and see what works best.

Take care,

 

[dieseldorf]

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=232333