good discussion - and i think one factor not included is skill -

certainly engine braking a z or a chevy van through a series of canyon
esses requires practice (not exactly a fuel saving idea there, racing
through canyons just to sharpen skills) which most folks don't really
get - i certainly crunched a lot of gearboxes in my youth trying to
drivc like aj foyt without knowing the first thing about it - (or
having multi-millionn dollar sponsorship and a pit crew that can swap
trannies in a minute and a half)

On Apr 26, 2006, at 10:37 AM, John Bange wrote:

> But using your engine as a braking mechanism wears your engine out
> faster,
> so I would imagine that replacing your brake pads is a lot less
> expensive
> than replacing your engine?
>

Click and Clack, for all their sneering at Vanagons, like to make the
very
good point that brakes are FOR braking, and brake pads are replaceable
for
cheap. Transmissions and engines, not so much. I think YMMV on this
quite
widely, though, depending on what and how you drive. My boss, annoyed
with
having to change brake pads on this 9800lb Chevy van every 2000 miles
(the
brakes were totally inadequate for the van, newer vans had larger
brakes),
and started downshifting instead. His pads were lasting almost 6000
miles
for a whole year, until the transmission crapped out. Downshifting to
slow
down a 5-ton van? Apparently not so good. On the other hand, I had a '78
280Z I downshifted constantly, weighed something like 2800lbs and had a
monster of a 5-speed manual transmission and an iron-block inline 6
engine.
In 6 years and 80,000 miles I changed brake pads twice and never had the
slightest indication of drive train wear.  Clearly a Vanagon falls
somewhere
in between those extremes, but it's hard to say where. Vanagon drive
train
is probably weaker than  that in either a Chevy van or an early Z, but
then
again Vanagons don't usually weigh 10K pounds, nor are Vanagon drivers
likely to  slow down from 120mph by downshifting and dropping the
clutch...
eau