[Freakazoid]

Originally Posted by JIM E92

I'm with you John. I hate to waste. In some countries it's illegal to idle for more than 5 minutes.

one of those countries is the usa (in some states):
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/90-16a.htm

[iBoost]

Originally Posted by davidkneiber

I get <19 mpg and i do mostly highway. My parents pay for gas, and I'm 16; excuse me for trying to get my average mpg up, i guess i have a lead foot. Thanks for your opinion though, i'll consider it next time i'm grabbing lunch.

Ill tell you what, start paying for that gas yourself and i guarantee you that avg MPG will go up.

[MadDog]

[Gavin@MMW]

cage the elephant?

[Gavin@MMW]

^ok not good.

[ScaredOnce]

I usually sit there revving my engine when traffic comes to a halt.

[carve]

Originally Posted by Freakazoid

several things wrong with this.

First, I'm going to hopefully assume you realize brakes are covered by the maintenance package. So therefore, prolonging them for really any reason is just plain silly (if anything try to do more wear the closer you get to 50k miles).
Second, and more importantly, you're putting a ton more wear on your auto tranny, the mounts, etc. For how cheap brakes are, it's a very silly trade off to be considering. You're only likely doubling the life of the brakes (at best), but significantly increasing the wear on the rest of your drivetrain. Any $$$ you save on brake pads is going to inevitably be spent (or even more will be spent) on the drivetrain parts decreased life.

I have an 07. No more included maintaince.

What extra wear on the tranny? It downshifts through the gears as you slow down anyway. I just put it in DS so it downshifts a bit sooner. RPM range is about the same as under gentle acceleration. When I'm driving my manual cars, I'll rev-match double clutch from 5th to 3rd or 4th to 2nd and let that be my only downshift. Double-clutching, there's very little wear on anything.

Energy increases with the square of speed, so slowing from 40 to 20 on the engine before touching the brakes put 1/4 as much wear on them. Slowing to 10 is 1/16

[jpsum]

Originally Posted by davidkneiber

I get <19 mpg and i do mostly highway. My parents pay for gas, and I'm 16; excuse me for trying to get my average mpg up, i guess i have a lead foot. Thanks for your opinion though, i'll consider it next time i'm grabbing lunch.

Starting and stopping the engine is bad for the engine. Unless it's a full stopped traffic - i.e., an accident ahead, there is no need to turn off the engine.

If you really want to save your parents some money, tell them to buy you a civic instead. But honestly, you really shouldn't have to worry about saving your parents money since they can afford a 335 for a 16 yr old.