[Vwdiesel] Quantum Milage pre & post re-ring

[Erik Lane]

Yes, by downshifting you're saving wear on your brakes, but you're
increasing wear on the clutches inside your tranny. They are metal
cone clutches, so they will generally last pretty well, but it's
really a good idea, in my opinion, to use the brakes for what they
were made for. Sure, if you have a very long downhill you can
downshift and use the engine, but in general downshifting puts extra
wear on tranny parts. It's much easier and cheaper to do brake work
than tranny work!

So I would suggest using the brakes as the default, but using the
engine for prolonged things. But when you do downshift it is nicer to
double-clutch it to put less wear on the internal transmission parts.

Just something to think about.

Erik

On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 2:45 AM, William J Toensing
<toensing at wildblue.net> wrote:
> Since 1996, all new cars sold in the USA have to be OBD 2 compliant which means that any car must have a standardized plug that you can plug in an OBD 2 reader to find any problems stored on the car's computer. Mark, I don't know if this applies to cars sold in the UK. The reason I mention this is that I bought an MPG meter that plugs into the OBD 2 port on my 2001 Focus from JC Whitney. The brand of the meter is Kiwi & it is made in Calif., not China. It has several functions, of which one reads average MPG & another reads instant MPG. It is interesting to watch MPG readings while decelerating. If I put the car in neutral & use the brakes to stop I get readings of 150 MPG. If I slow down while in top gear or 5 th gear, MPG will run from 90 to 120 MPG. If I shift into 3rd using the engine to slow down, which I often do, MPG is around 45 MPG. Observation: For maximum MPG, when braking, put the gear box into neutral & use the brakes to slow down. Shifting the gear box into a lower gear to avoid using the brakes results in a lower MPG, but does save on brake pads. I can see how a Prius gets 50 MPG (USA) because it can recapture energy used in braking.
> Bill Toensing
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