A case against pulse and glide

[Gary Palmer]

Wecome to GasSavers: EOC refers to engine off coasting. It is also known as Codfishing, which largely started as a joke. It essentially refers to turning off your engine, putting your car in neutral and coasting to extend your mileage. It can often be used to long coasts to lights.

However, it has some risks. First it is illegal, some places. Second, if you have power brakes or power assist, which almost all cars do, now, then you only have the assist for one or maybe two uses of the brake pedal. After that the brakes still will work, but you have to press substantially harder. Third, if you use the ignition key to turn off the car, you can get the key and steering wheel lock caught in a fixed position, and encounter difficulty with getting it unlocked, while your rolling towards something you don't want to be. This tends to cause increased heart rate and uneasy passengers.

To EOC more safely, you should put in an injection cut off switch or something, so you can turn off the engine, without utilizing the key. On my car, I also removed the wheel interlock switch, so I can't get my steering wheel locked up, if I am doing EOC.

It is like a great many things, it seems to work better in some cars, than others, it seems to work someplaces better than others and sometimes it either seems to not work or not work any better than other things. In that respect each person is a unique experiment in terms of where they are, how they drive and what they drive.

Try it, if it works, for you great. If it doesn't then stop and try something else.

Where I have been very surprised with EOC is in driving hills. It seems if you go up the hills at a little slower, non accelerating rate, you can achieve pretty high mileage, overall, by EOCing down the hills. However, you have to always consider safety in speed and control, as being far more important than a few miles per gallon improvement in gas mileage.