COASTING ON HILLS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4959, 23 February 1937, Page 6

COASTING ON HILLS.

Years ago quite • a controversy used to crop up at periodical intervals in the motoring pages of the press regarding the wisdom of coasting on down grades. Keen motorists simply loved the impression of smooth, silent speed which they gained by rushing down a hill with the gears in neutral, but the practice was frowned upon and rightly, because of the very elementary braking systems used in those days, and the utter impossibility of getting back into gear in a hurry so as to use the compression of the engine as a brake if, as so often happened, the engine had stalled in the meantime. The question has been raised again quite recently, and it is worth discusing in its relation to the modern type of car. This possesses two features the old ones did not —very efficient four-wheel brakes and a synchro-mesh gearbox. The first reduces the posibility of the oar gettig out of hand to a rather remote riswk, and the second enables the driver to get into gear even though the engine has stopped. It can be said, therefore, that coasting is quite permissible to-day on short, straight hills, but should be avoided when the road is winding, the motorist is unfamiliar with it, and its unknown length may require too constant use of the brakes. Although braking efficiency to-day is much higher than it ever was before, it still is asking too much of brake linings to retard a car for miles on end, and, as was always the case, such treatment will set the linings on fire. Therefore, if the motorist must coast, he should confine his coasting to those fairly short main road hills out in the open country. In coasting, however ,the gear lever should always be slipped into neutral and the foot removed from the clutch. To coast with the clutch out is terribly hard oh the clutch with-

drawal race, and if the clutch is held out for long periods this race will wear out within a very short time indeed.