Originally Posted by jlukja

I've shifted into neutral while the car was moving all my life, never had a problem. Almost all those instances were when I was descending a hill and didn't want the engine to do the braking for me (even in 5th gear). In those instances I usually shift into neutral to coast down a hill. At the end of the hill, when the car returns naturally to approx 60-65 mph I rev the engine (which is idling at 600rpm while in neutral) to around 2000rpm and then put it back in D. If I need to shift back to D at some higher speed I just rev the engine to the appropriate rpm for that speed (called "rev-matching").

Its not the same a neutral-drop or a neutral-slam. A neutral drop is when, at a standstill, you gun the engine to a high rpm in neutral and then drop it into gear to get the tires spinning. That is very bad for your transmission.

If you want to experiment with SS just watch what the automatic transmission does when in D. (i.e. watch for when, at what rpm, the tranny upshifts and downshifts) and initially, mimic that. Once you get the hang of it then experiment with how the car feels if you let it rev up higher or downshift sooner. In general, for economy driving, you want to upshift before 3000rpm and downshift before 1000 rpm. For performance driving the higher the rpm the more horsepower and the more engine-braking ability. Have fun.

Originally Posted by Benz_05_TSX

^ so what you saying is... If I apply the same pressure on the gas pedal in two scenerios. One always upshift at 2k rpm and the other always upshift from 2.5-3k rpm. The 2k rpm scenerio will still safe more gas?

Originally Posted by Acurasrule

Even in the slight change doing this doesn not ruin you tranny, why would you do this? Why wouldn't you want the engine to do any of the braking? Modern Vehicle's esspecialy the TSX have advanced computer electronics.... if you're going down a hill, and have to brake quickly, the TSX automatic transmission will safely engine brake for you, among other things. Even if you don't have to brake suddenly, just slowly going down the hill while in D won't burn much gas. If you look at the Instant miles per gallon it will show the needle all the way to the right of 60+ MPG.... I just can't think of a good reason to take the vehicle out of D, where the computer is engaged and various road conditions/driving conditions are constantly being proccessed into the ECU and different things adjusted, and the to put it in Neutral?

Again, I have no idea if this is causing damage per say, but even if it's not, I see absolutley no advantage of doing this. I think you are giving up a lot of the safety features of the TSX when you do this