FinalHeven said:
These questions are for any automatic trans.: 1. Does it save gas to put the car in neutral when coasting and at stop lights? 2. Is it safe (if you keep your foot on the brake)? Is it safe to turn the car off at a light? 3. What help and damage could it be for the trans. to be changed to neutral and back to drive? 4. Overall, is it a good or bad idea to put an auto. in neutral in any of these cases.
i will answer this
for the CVT Insight (sorry if i'm off topic now)
1. NO. while coasting (foot off the accelerator pedal) the Insight enters Fuel Cut mode in Drive (pistons still moving, but not getting gas). If you put it in Neutral, you can coast farther, but your engine will now need to use gas to idle - preventing it from stalling.
2. If you are in Auto-Stop mode, turning the key off will turn off the rest of the car (electrical appliances). This may save you some battery charge if you are stopped for a long time, but make sure you put the car into Park when you turn it on again!
If you are stopped and your car is idling, you
could put it in Park and turn off the car. I have done this when traffic is standing still for several minutes.
3. In my previous Automatic transmission cars (Nissan Pathfinder and Honda Civic), putting it into Neutral seems to tell the transmission there is no load on the engine, so it will shift into 1st gear; if you are still moving, and you put it into Drive again, hold on to your butt!
I have not tried this in the Insight (yet :twisted: ).
I have done something I think is similar: accelerated on a hill with Auto-Stop engaged; what basically happened was the transmission stayed in a low gear when it turned off at 6mph, and when it turned on at 25mph, I nearly hit my head on the windshield!
4. I sometimes put the car in Neutral in the drive-through, when Auto-Stop will not engine, and the rough idle in Drive starts to erk me.
hope this helps (for someone

)