If you are going downhill in your car and you put the gear in neutral instead of pressing the gas, you will go faster while doing this. you will not waste fuel You may have thought. From the outside it really looks like a win-win system, doesn’t it?

So is that really true? Does shifting to neutral downhill save fuel as expected? Let’s say without going into the content, this is the case. endangering your life As if that weren’t enough, it doesn’t save fuel for most cars.

There are actually two situations here!

On older carbureted cars, neutralizing can save very little fuel, but for most vehicles on the road, putting the gear in neutral on a slope can be an advantage. We know that it does not save fuel, on the contrary, it increases fuel consumption.

In modern vehicles, as soon as your vehicle senses it is going downhill, it stops supplying fuel to the engine. Because the acceleration provided by the incline and your previous speed creates all the power to keep the engine running. At this point your engine with little or “no” fuel consumption it is in working condition. This fuel cut is done by electronic fuel injection controlled by the electronic control unit (ECU).

In fact, putting the gear in neutral will waste fuel.

When you put the gear in neutral while going downhill in modern vehicles you separate the motor from the wheels. In other words, in order for the engine to keep running, it must use the same amount of fuel as it does at idle. However, if the vehicle were not idling, the acceleration from the wheels on the ramp would be transferred to the engine and it could continue to operate without the need for fuel.

On older cars, neutralizing the vehicle while going downhill saves “some” fuel. So for what?

Older generation cars had a carburetor without an intelligent control system. The carburetor, a mechanical device, injected fuel into the engine. Here the carburetor continues to send fuel based on engine speed because it doesn’t understand that the vehicle is going downhill. For that reason, thus fuel consumption may be slightly higherBut even in old generation cars, driving in gear is necessary for your safety.

Why put your life in danger when going downhill?

So far we have discussed the effect of putting the gear in neutral on fuel consumption. In fact, there is something more important than fuel economy: safety.

When you put the gear in neutral while driving your vehicle downhill, you disconnect the wheels from the engine. This is the vehicle It accelerates uncontrollably as the drag needed to keep the engine running is removed.

This uncontrolled acceleration considerably increases the braking distance and high speed. Because “engine brake” The force we generate and help the vehicle stop completely disappears and we have to rely solely on the brake pads during the braking phase. As a result, the brake pads also heat up more and the brakes do not hold or hold very little. A scenario where the brakes don’t hold while driving at high speed could endanger your life.

Shifting into neutral can make you sluggish when instantaneous responses are required.

Let’s imagine you need to accelerate suddenly while putting your vehicle in neutral and driving at high speed. In such a scenario You must put the vehicle back into gear. Maybe even that 1 second time difference can cause you to crash. For this reason, it is imperative to keep the vehicle in the “correct gear” at all times.

Today we talked about the effect of putting gear in neutral while your vehicle is going downhill on fuel economy and safety deficiencies. If you want more content like this, let me know in the comments.

• Sources: Lightfoot, Quora