At 15:51 07-05-98 -0700, Katherine Lee wrote:
>Don't think this is going to be of much help, but your suggestion of
>"damage to the transmission" reminds me of my teenage years, when I drove
>an old 67 Parisienne (nicknamed by my friends as "The Boat"), handed down
>to me from my father.  In order to save gas, I used to coast to a stop by
>popping the shifter into neutral and applying the brake (there WERE no
>hills in Winnipeg), when one time I inadvertently popped the shifter TOO
>FAR and ended up jerking the automatic transmission to a halt by going into
>reverse while the car was still rolling forward.  Ouch.

I recently drove a Volvo 850 Turbo for a week.  It had an onboard computer
that would indicate the fuel consuption in litres/100 kms.  For those of
you not familiar with measuring fuel comsumption in l/100kms, the lower the
number the better the fuel economy (this is the opposite of measuring mpgs).

I was shocked at how high the fuel consumption went on normal acceleration
(30-35) and on aggressive acceleration the numbers went higher still
(40-50) but when coasting to a stop, especially on a slight downhill grade,
in a high gear (4th or 5th) the numbers went near zero (1-5).  The overall
rate of fuel consumption, after a week of "spirited" city driving, for this
vehicle is about 14 litres/100kms (about the same as my Westy).

The bottom line, disengaging the motor would seem to save very little and
could cause extra wear and tear.  *** Warning *** This is MHO and I don't
know anything (that's what people tell me) :-)

Kelly Bauman
Delta, BC
'91 Westy