Coasting in neutral vs. downshifting

[Rod-Knox]

I guess there can be many situations where shifting to neutral to coast can be a benefit but not always. And down shifting to slow the car is rarely a benefit while on long steep downhill grades using a lower gear to limit speed can be worthwhile and does no damage to the clutch or transmission. Years ago I saw a video of an old Rolls Royce driver training class that instructed shifting to neutral as soon as coasting down in speed reached the point where down shifting was needed and remaining in neutral until the point where it was necessary to shift to the appropriate gear ratio to continue on rather than shifting down from gear to gear as speed decreased. A glass of water was attached to the dashboard and a ‘good driver’ was supposed to never accelerate, brake or corner abruptly enough to cause the water to spill over the rim. Maybe driver training was a significant part of the Rolls Royce image of reliability and longevity.