Spider Monkey

Because it is the law?






(I don't do it either though)

spacecoupe2007

iTrader: (4)

And theres that coool factor at a red light where the car starts rolling back
Alsooo if youre worried about it being illegal , at worst, you can just use the ebrake
But personally , neutral works for meee.

SenHR

iTrader: (6)

I was taught to go into neutral at lights oh well.

FenixL1P

i'm currently @ 109k miles (80% highway miles) on stock oem clutch with about 5k miles to go i think... knock on wood. It will last if you keep it in neutral so that you are not slipping... that and limited drag racing... i've "burned" my clutch a few times too....

drivessidewayz

iTrader: (4)

You don't really need to push in the clutch to go to neutral, but there's no good reason not to. If you want to prolong the life of your clutch, t/o bearing, and your leg:

double clutch downshifts
leave it in neutral at lights
release it as quickly as comfortably possible during every shift (or just drop it if you don't mind the extra strain on everything else).

The clutch wears whenever it slips, so the less you let it slip the less it will wear. Simple logic.

SSNOS

iTrader: (9)

100% sarcasm. Never do that, makes the clutch slip and wear like crazy. I only clearified this because you seem sincere.

kingkai

I generally take my car out of gear as I coast to a stop, then leave it out of gear and wait till the light changes then shift and start moving. I see no reason at all.. including this "law" to sit with car in gear and clutch depressed at every stoplight. Never heard of this being illegal, I think that people just have bad information and a misunderstanding of how a car works and maybe that started because some believe you should use the engine to slow you down.


Edit: Possibly, it refers to neutral + Ebrake which would be a problem as an Ebrake wont stop you if rear ended while braking will.

doshoru

iTrader: (3)

This gets my vote.

The clutch does slip/wear when you disengage. If you disengage quickly, it'll slip less.

I always have it in neutral at lights. I've heard that it's illegal to coast down a hill in neutral (I do it anyways, sometimes....although coasting in gear at low rpms uses even less gas), but never that it's illegal when stopped...I don't see how that's even remotely feasible. If I was standing on the clutch at lights, I imagine my TOB would wear out 1000% more quickly?

Also, skipping shifts can actually wear the clutch more if you upshift quickly...think about it -- the change in rpms when upshifting from 2 to 4 is greater than when upshifting from 2 to 3.

Explanation:

As soon as you push in the clutch to upshift, rpms start to naturally drop. If you time it perfectly so that you let the clutch back out at the exact engine rpm that the transmission would be running at in that gear, then you won't wear the clutch (much).

However...if the rpms have either not dropped enough, OR have dropped *too much*, the clutch is going to be used/worn to "force" the engine speed to match the speed that the transmission is moving at in the next gear.

In the grand scheme of things, skipping a gear on a casual UPSHIFT really isn't going to have any *noticeable* effect on longevity. Skipping gears on DOWNSHIFTS will cause accelerated wear of both the clutch and the synchros. This can be mitigated by single-clutch rev-matching (save clutch wear), and double-clutch rev-matching (saves both clutch & synchro wear). More info on single vs double clutching: http://www.epinions.com/auto-review-...3A351631-prod4