[05Moose]

Originally Posted by Climber76

With a manual you can drive for miles rolling downhill in neutral. With the automatic, as several people have pointed out, it locks up as soon as it can, and then doesn't unlock when you lift the gas, so you get engine breaking when you don't want it, even if it's in 5th.

That's not exactly how it works. The engine braking doesn't take effect the minute you lift off the gas. In fact, you can coast forever without it downshifting with your foot off the gas. The trigger is the brake. Even if you step on the brake and cause the transmission to downshift (engaging the engine braking), you can simply cancel it. Just throw it into 4th and back to 5th. This will automatically cancel it and put you back into coast mode...until you step on the brake again in which case maybe you needed to downshift manually anyway.