February 22, 2011
Does putting your car in neutral while waiting at a red light really help to save gas?
I heard it from a friend. Would doing this hurt my car in any way?
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Filed under Gas Conservation FAQ by on Feb 22nd, 2011. Comment. 
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Comments on Does putting your car in neutral while waiting at a red light really help to save gas?
Putting your car in neutral makes the car idle faster, so no it does not save gas. It can hurt your car if you constantly shift in and out a lot.
it doesn’t but it would not hurt your car unless you break a linkage in the trans so dont bother doing it
It would probably make it use a little more gas since the engine would be going faster at the same throttle opening. But the amount of gas used when idling is tiny, and you’d never notice the difference.
we’ll assume you have an automatic…
the gas savings is minimal..
shifting into neutral can have some benefits and they are
it saves wear and tear on your torque converter in your automatic transmission.
it will take the load off your motor and prevent the buildup of carbon deposits within your engine.
some things you have to keep in mind when doing this…
1.Only shift into neutral if you intend on being stopped for longer than a minute. any shorter interval will can unneeded wear when you constant shift in and out of gear.
2.do not shift into neutral and coast, some transmissions such as the allison transmission from gm will only circulate transmission fluid properly while in gear. come to a complete stop and then shift to neutral.
this is all moot if you have a standard transmission though. if that is the case, put it in neutral and take your foot off the clutch pedal.
No… the engine is still running
Shutting the engine off at long lights would
Hybrid vehicles do this at every stop…….
i hate to tell you this, but your friend is wrong. your car is sill running, weather its in gear or neutral. it wont hurt it, but it wont help it either.the only time i put my car in neutral is if iam sitting too long in a line of traffic, i through it in neutral to keep the tranny cooler.
Placing the trans. in neutral does speed up the engine a bit. but when the trans. is in drive it also has a slight load on the engine. There is not enough on either way that is going to save that much fuel. You would not notice it. Good by
Sitting at a light while in neutral may not be much of a gas savings at all BUT putting your car in neutral upon coming up to a light will save you gas. Why? People generally have their foot on the gas all the way up to about 20 feet of the light in hopes that it will change before they have to actually stop.
Try coasting up to stop lights instead. You may think this is crazy but people known as “hypermilers” do things like this and has proven that there is a savings.
There is a website that talks about this kind of gas saving tips. The site is listed below in the source area.
because you loose the load that is on the engine, yes, but rpm goes up so you will be using more fuel for that. from what i under stand cops do not like it when you do this,