What does it mean to start the engine without shifting to neutral?

1 Answers
VanJasmine
07/30/25 7:09am
Starting the engine without shifting to neutral means starting the car by depressing the clutch, which is essentially coasting in neutral. Introduction to Shifting to Neutral: Shifting to neutral refers to moving the gear from any of the 1st to 5th gears into neutral while the car is moving or before turning off the engine after parking. This applies to manual transmission cars. For automatic transmission cars, this concept doesn't exist because although they also have a neutral gear (N), it is not allowed to shift into N while the car is in motion, as it can cause significant damage to the transmission or even render it useless. Introduction to Coasting in Neutral: The term 'coasting in neutral' is somewhat outdated now. For carburetor-equipped cars, shifting to neutral and coasting at any speed did save fuel, but the trade-off was that without the engine's braking effect via the clutch, the entire burden of deceleration fell on the braking system of all four wheels. If an emergency brake is needed while coasting in neutral, the braking distance would be longer compared to coasting with the gear engaged. In other words, while saving fuel, it also introduced some risks in terms of braking performance.
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