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Comment by rsp1984 | Hacker News Reader

rsp1984

An often lost fact in automatic vs. stick-shift discussions is that in practice automatic transmission causes much heavier wear on the brakes of the car.

This is because with a stick-shift you can just gear down when going downhill or before a foreseen stop and let the engine do most of the breaking for you. You then only use the brakes to bring the car to a full-stop on the last couple meters. This gets you much better mileage on your brake disks and pads. Can't do that with an automatic.

Plus it's more fuel efficient.

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Some new cars (and likely some older ones) offer paddle shifters and other ways to kinda pretend to be a manual. Eg most Subarus have this now.

As someone who preferred cars with a manual transmission until recently, the paddle shifters are useless when accelerating (they just don't work well, and rarely feel "smooth"), but I really appreciate them for engine braking in the snow.

I wonder if you could get similar brake-saving results if you got accustomed to switching to manual mode when braking and then switching back to drive regularly.

Hey, I have a Subaru with those paddles! I never knew what they were. I've never pressed them.

In an automatic you can downshift to one of the low ranges, and that will effect engine braking. The ones I've driven allow you to shift between the forward ranges without depressing the lockout button, specificaly for this reason.

Unfortunately it seems a lot of drivers don't know about it.

My previous car automatically engaged engine-breaking when going downhill, when it was appropriate to do so. I also had paddle-shifters if I wanted to do it myself. Your statement that cars with automatic transmissions can't engine brake is wrong.

I use engine braking in this way, but I've often wondered how much additional wear this is putting on the clutch. Given that brake pads/discs are cheap, and a clutch is not, maybe in the long run this doesn't actually work out cheaper?

If you rev match properly, the down shift should be just as smooth and quick as a normal up shift.

E.G. you're in fourth gear at 50 MPH, you engage the clutch pedal, shift to third, tap the gas, and release the clutch pedal.

I'd be more worried about wear of the valve train. Brake pads are cheaper.

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