8 Things You Shouldn't Do While Driving An Automatic Transmission Vehicle

Driving an automatic is more easy than driving a manual.Even people with basic driving skills can do it. But there are still ways to mess up parts of your vehicle. 

Here are few things you shouldn’t do if you drive a car with an automatic transmission.

1.Do not coast downhill in neutral :-

Putting the car in neutral and letting it coast on downhill would not save you any extra fuel, and furthermore, doing so takes the control out of your hand since you cannot accelerate the car in neutral mode and can only slow it down using brakes. Modern automatics are intelligent enough to cut the supply of fuel while you drive downhill, thereby preventing the need for coasting and providing more fuel efficiency much like their manual counterparts.

2.Do not shift gears when your car is moving :-

Make sure you come to a complete stop before going from Drive to Reverse or vice versa. Why? For one, it wears out your transmission, because you’re using THAT to stop the car instead of your brakes. The car will actually stop but you will end up wearing out your automatic transmission band.

3.Do not Driving hard without warming up the engine :-

It’s a blunder, especially in the 

winter season. The oil thickens and moves slowly when the weather is cold. Give the fuel a minute to run into the transmission and all of its parts. If you shift into gear and start driving at high speed from the beginning, it will lead to severe internal damage.Hence, it is highly recommended that you warm up the engine for a minute and let the fuel run into the transmission.

The above-mentioned things should be kept in mind while you’re driving an automatic vehicle to ensure better safety, greater fuel-economy and prolonged functionality of the internal parts of your car.

4.Do not keep the fuel tank running out of fuel :-

When riding an automatic vehicle, make sure that you do not keep the fuel tank continuously low. Because an AT vehicle relies heavily on the fluid pressure. Otherwise, it can not run properly. Decent quantity of fuel also helps to cool down the engine and keeps other internal components lubricated.

5.Do not put your car in park till you have come to a complete stop :-

Most modern automatics would not let you put the car in Park mode, because they have an internal mechanism (Speed Sensor) to stop it from happening. However, some old ones may let you do it, but you should not, and here’s why. When you engage park what happens is that a locking pin is inserted into a gear that is connected to your transmission output shaft. The wheels of your car are connected are connected to your transmission output shaft such that when the shaft is locked your wheels cannot move. If you happen to engage park when the car is still moving, you can easily shear the locking pin and even break it which would call for costly repairs. In a situation whereby you need to stop car and brakes are not working, rather than engaging park just downshift to gear 2 and lower/first gear to slow down the car.

6.Do not launch the car to prevent slippage of clutches :-

Revving the engine in Neutral and then putting the car in drive to launch it can be detrimental to the automatic transmission. The bands and clutches that are used to change modes and drive it in different modes / gears progressively, can get worn prematurely due to the slippage and torque handling, launching the car would do just that and should be avoided. The correct way to put the car into drive mode is by using the brake pedal while the engine is revving normally. You may have an additional button on the gear lever that you should use while changing the modes.

7.Do not put your car in Neutral mode at the red light :-



Many people do this to save fuel and protect the driveline from unnecessary wear. In fact, the loss is minimal if you push the brakes by keeping the gearbox in Drive mode. The actual damage takes place when you switch into and out of the neutral mode.

8.Do not delay changing the transmission fluid :-

In an automatic transmission, there is higher heat produced. That means there’s going to be more carbon produced, which will contaminate the transmission fluid. Over time, these contaminants will cause the fluid to thicken and no longer do its job effectively.