> A manual transmission
> automobile can use the engine for slowing down much more effectively
> than an automatic can.

The cost of the energy lost due to braking, and the money spent on
maintaining brakes is a lot less than the wear on the engine,
transmission and clutch after using them as brakes.
Neal Barrentine
Bloomington, Indiana
1986 GL
1960 Baja Bug

On Apr 26, 2006, at 11:50 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:

> Date:    Wed, 26 Apr 2006 12:26:27 -0400
> From:    Kim Brennan <kimbrennan@MAC.COM>
> Subject: Re: More Energy Saving (driving)
>
> Essential the philosophy promoted in the John Muir book "How to Keep
> your Volkswagen Alive". Think of brakes negatively. Use them sparingly.
>
> My father is an adherent of that philosophy. He'd often get 100K
> miles out of his brakes before they needed to be worked on. Mechanics
> never could understand how he did it. A manual transmission
> automobile can use the engine for slowing down much more effectively
> than an automatic can.