list of gas saving tips from best to worst

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by theholycow

Actually, I thought of a reason that would be meaningful for some cars but is not universally practiced. If the direct drive gear is used on the way to 60mph then its better efficiency contributes to lowering 0-60 time. Seems like most cars reach 60 in 2nd gear these days, though.

I came up with some guesses:
1. Marketing.
2. Packaging or engineering issues for really short gears in the transmission or really tall gears in the rear end.

I asked a retired Chrysler manual transmission engineer, and it turns out I was right:
http://standardshift.com/forum/viewt...325102#p325102
...making such an extremely short 1st gear is subject to packaging, engineering, and cost issues.