Hi rocco, Thank you for your post. My use of "relax" was obviously not intended as a human interpretation. Regardless my AAMCO experience, consider sitting at the Start Line of a drag strip with an auto trans. With the engine revving at 3000 RPM, you're holding the brakes waiting for the lights to count down. Obviously, in that scenario, the engine, transmission and brakes are heating up waiting for the launch. I am simply pointing out that sitting at a stop light, in gear, with your foot on the brakes has the same effect, albeit to a MUCH lesser extent. However, add up all of those stop lights and it takes its toll.

Since we've been putting our automatics in neutral whenever we're stopped, we have never had a transmission problem. Not one! And, my wife and I keep our DD's for 8-10 years, sometimes longer.

.....That's been my experience anyway (and I'm 69).

 

The auto vs manual thing has been going on forever. I have had both in my life, not particularly vettes, but in different cars I've owned.

I prefer manual. It's a sports car and not my daily driver. I wouldn't have it any other way. My daily driver is a 2013 Nissan Frontier which is an auto. That for me is perfect, because a manual sucks in traffic.

I've driven many sports cars in auto and manual. I had a couple of gtos years ago. I first purchased a 2005 GTO m6 car. I added LT headers and a Magnuson supercharger. Funnest car I ever owned. Then I decided to take all the mods off and trade it in on a 2006 a4 gto. I cammed that car with LT headers, high stall convertor etc..
Fun car, but not nearly as fun as my M6 car. The a4 was far too boring for me. So I sold it.

So here I am again. Purchased my first vette a couple months ago. I made sure it was an m6. Sort of hard to find as there are a4 C4's everywhere. Anyways I love my M6 c4. Super fun car.

 

I'm a 15-20 minute drive to get to where I can even use 4th gear in my ZF6 - with Seattle/Eastside area traffic, 6th gear is a rare event.

 

That may have been your experience, but I don't think it can be shown that it is the definitive reason behind no problems. I too have had zero transmission problems in any of the vehicles I have owed except for the ones caused by beating on them. I find it hard to believe that the toll being taken on the clutchpacks by constantly engaging and disengaging at every stoplight isn't taking place. The little bit of heat generated by leaving it in gear is easily dissipated. They are called automatics for a reason. If not, might as well have stuck with the old Desoto fluid drives.

 

And now you have to accept a performance penalty for the privilege of rowing you own gear changes. If someone challenges you with an auto you have to pass I guess.

 

Some people have nothing to prove.
Some people just want to have fun with a powerful, affordable sports car.
Some people prefer to do this with a manual transmission.

But apparently it's your way or the highway.
Good luck with that.

 

Funny but when you go to any professional road racing event you won't find anyone running a hydraulically operated automatic like what is being put into the new Z06...guess when performance is the end goal and money is nearly no object people feel that there is performance to be found in real gears....just my .02

 

Strangely its actually considered worse on them doing the neutral deal. But its not neutral that's the problem. Its putting it in gear. Putting an automatic transmission in gear is the hardest thing it faces short of wot gear changes. So yes leaving it in gear actually is better on the hard parts. That said heat is bad on them too. So if you know your going to be somewhere for a long time. Then park is ideal. My rule of thumb is if its with the effort to put it in park aka long enough then its better than leaving it in drive. Going for neutral at every red light? Nope that's to much impact for to little a time stopped. Basically Id say its a 3 or better minute rule.

 

Road course, curves etc I its manual all the way.

Drag racing with a car that can actually go fast its automatic all the way. A proper automatic will turn in better times run after run. Manual cars will never be as consistent as a well setup automatic.

 

Hi CROWZ... thank you for your post. I've never considered the clutch packs in my N to D shift when a light turns green and, you've offered something for me to research. However, if it makes any difference, I shift back into gear with my foot off the brake, which should soften the blow to transmission components.

In researching your post, I found this article written by the Tech Editor of "Top Gear:'

http://www.topgear.com.ph/features/c...uck-in-traffic

 

The problem with the top gear article is they are making the assumption that the car is "slipping" the clutches when you come to a stop and it isn't. The torque converter is whats "slipping" not the gears. When you come to a stop 1st gear or whatever the trans is in (it actually varies on transmission design as to what gear your in when you come to a stop but 1st is "normal" for most of them) the clutches are fully engaged. No difference in moving or sitting still. The torque converter is whats doing the slipping. Now when you change gears from neutral to drive you actually causing wear to the clutch packs. Sitting still in drive the clutches are fully engaged with no slipping occurring.

The heat build up is from the torque converter not the clutches in the transmission. The torque converter is designed to handle this with the only real issue being heat build up and if your cooling system is up to the job this isn't a big deal.

 

Hi CROWZ. I've reread the article several times and understand it differently. The paragraph in question is probably the following:

"With automatic transmissions, the engine is energizing or driving the transmission to move in the direction of the gear you've selected--forward or reverse. When you keep it in gear, you are telling your vehicle to move; when you're on the brakes, you're preventing motion. You're unnecessarily and slowly raising your automatic transmission fluid [temperature], wearing out your transmission clutches, and consuming more fuel because you're on the brakes to keep the car from inching forward. You're also unnecessarily wearing down and heating up your brake pads. By simply shifting to N or neutral there would be no need to apply the brakes with the amount of force required to resist forward motion."

I take his meaning to be that the increased transmission fluid temperature contributes to wearing out the clutches. He omitted the word "temperature" after "fluid," which is clearly a type-o, as heat is the context of his warning. His meaning seems clear enough to me.

However you take it, I still believe that "relaxing" the drivetrain when stopped is, overall, the wise thing to do for your vehicle's overall longevity.

 

There is no wear on clutches from temperature in itself. That's like saying you need to lower the thermostat in a manual transmission car because the clutch is being damaged.

Slippage = clutch wear. The clutches are not slipping when your sitting still. The torque converter is. Also the converter is a vane sitting in transmission fluid when not locked up at cruising speed. So its not "wearing" it out either. Its just generating heat. Heat is bad but unless something is wrong with your cooling system sitting in drive at a red light isn't going to raise the temp enough to hurt anything. If it does then something was wrong with the cooling system to start with.

Clutch wear on the other hand is a flat fact that over time will cause the trans to fail. Every time you change into gear your wearing the clutch material in the clutch packs. Its physics. Has to happen. Same with shifting too. But it has to shift right?

Change your fluid at the recommended times and if you actually worried about trans life by using neutral then get an aftermarket trans cooler installed. That will do more good for your trans than shifting to neutral ever could temperature wise. An aftermarket trans cooler would cause the trans to run at a lower temp in gear than it runs in neutral.

 

Also another thing I keep reading that I find amusing in that linked page and others is "your wearing down your brakes sitting still in drive". What? There is no wear on brake pads sitting still. You can go outside sit in your car in park for the next 5 years applying the brakes. The only thing that's going to wear is the calipers, master cylinder and brake booster. This isn't from "braking" but just causing the them to move parts. Sitting still and holding the car still with the brakes doesn't wear anything. Nothings moving.

The only freak scenario I can come up with that cause damage would be if the cars brakes were red hot and somehow warped the rotor applying pressure. But this would happen before you would of been able to shift the trans out of drive.

If the brakes were wearing down from being applied sitting still then manual parking brakes would fail monthly on people cars.

 

Generally I believe this to be true though there are always exception. There were people like Ronnie Sox and a few others that always were known for their 4 speed abilities. Back in the 60's and 70's it was such a joy to watch some of these drivers do their magic behind that shifter.

 

I have nothing to prove. I drag raced different cars I've built and owned since I was 15. Drag raced for 15 years. I know a lower powered auto car will kill a higher powered manual car in drag racing At the track. Been there done that many times and been on both ends of the spectrum. It was fun, but the road course is where I'm having the real fun.

Been doing auto cross and road course for 5 years. Currently was racing motorcycles until my accident that just happen on Easter, in which I almost lost my leg.

I have found that road course with a car or motorcycle is much more fun than going in a straight line. Straight line racing is boring. That's my opinion and I've done both. I wish I would of got into road course racing sooner.

 

Say WHAT!? Only if you're talking cars faster than ~11 seconds and/or a terrible driver. Most, if not all cars slower than 12 seconds, a great driver will drive a stick faster than an auto. Once you get below ~11's, even the best drivers spend too much timing shifting compared to an auto, and the power lost in the auto, and gained back during shifts.

 

Your are right. An amazing driver that knows how to shift can still make it happen. I never got my gto into the 10's. But it was very capable with over 500+whp. 11.0s is where it ran. But I also had a junk stock clutch and ended up busting an axle. My stock a4 420whp gto with 4000 stall ran 11.75's.

 

In certain scenarios, that can be true....but as a blanket statement, it is not.

You could also put it factually this way: a low powered auto car will lose to a low powered manual car. Of course, all this depends on just now much power each car mentioned is actually making; there will be a difference in results between low-powered 400hp cars and low powered 130hp cars.

As far as brakes getting hot or experiencing wear while the car is not moving....well, crowz has it right. Just as he has it right on how much wear is saved on an auto trans by placing it in neutral every time you come to a stop. Doing that won't help your auto trans one bit. I also use the 3-minute rule....I go into neutral, with my foot on the brake.

 

Well the key here is what kind of racing your doing.

Around here bracket racing is king. Manuals get their butts handed to them nightly.

There was one night in fact that was quite memorable. An old 1973 or something boat of a car(station wagon in fact) turning in 16 second 1/8th mile runs took the money home against cars that ran under 7 seconds. How? That old boat with an automatic transmission never varied. It ran the same exact times within 1/2 of a second every pass all night long. Driver was pretty damn good. His reaction time was dead on the money. This from a car not running electric brakes or stutter box or anything else.

Normally these cars and trucks wouldn't of been running for money in the same bracket but turn out was to low to keep them separated that night.


Anyways the point is an automatic is very consistent. So if bracket racing your probably going to lose with a stick vs an auto.

Even on the flat out side (non bracket) autos are wicked fast on shifts. But on low horsepower setups like mentioned by someone Id rather have a manual. You can squeeze more out of a low horsepower engine with a manual and the manual doesn't suck power off the motor as bad as an automatic does. So for sub 200hp Id rather have a manual.

200 to 300hp flip a coin with me leaning to the auto. Over 300? I want a well built auto for drag racing.

For autocross, circle track or anything with twists and turns I want a manual.



So it really depends on what kind of racing your doing.