I am in the habit of shifting from D to N when I am stopped in a traffic light. I do this at any stop I assume will last more than 30 seconds. I always thought that this is better for the engine, for the break fluid and pump, and for emissions. A friend of mine (who is somewhat knowledgeable about cars) told me that I will wear out my Tranny doing this. Is this true? Any help would be appreciated.

My previous two cars were both Automatic Camrys. On the Camry, you don’t need to press the shifter button to go from D to N. On the Mustang however you have to press the shifter button to go from D to N. Is this because the Mustang wants to discourage drivers from frequent D-N-D shifts or as a safety feature? Thanks..wysiwyg { background-attachment: scroll; background-repeat: repeat; background-position: 0% 0%; background-color: #f5f5ff; background-image: none; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal } p { margin: 0px; }

 

I asked an auto tranny mechanic this once and he told me that it's not necessary to shift to neutral everytime you're at a stoplight.

 

Leave it in drive unless your going be there for a while. DB

 

Unless it's like a 4 minute light and your brake leg won't hold out... I'd leave it in "D".

 

when I'm at a long light, I just pull the hand brake. I leave the car in drive and take my foot off the brake.

 

I don't think you will hurt the transmission by putting it into neutral at a long light. It won't really save any brakes, or be any easier on anything brake system wise. The only thing it will do is save a small amount of gas. It takes more gas to keep the car idling while in gear than in neutral. Will it make you get better gas mileage?? probably not anything noticable. So it's your call. I don't think it will hurt anything, but it probably won't help much either.

 

Transmissions today are a HECK of a lot better than they used to be. They can take care of themselves. Remember, very few AT drivers take note of their transmission, and the designers have configured things accordingly. It'll be fine. Besides, if you're constantly jumping in and out of D and N, you can confuse the shift comp and it'll do wierd things. Plus there's a certain amount of "learning" in the shift computer that you mess up by overriding it all the time.

The only time I shift into N when not idling for a long time, is to rev the engine....which is cruel on another level we won't discuss...