How would that be efficient?
Engine braking wears transmission components which are considerably more fragile and expensive than replacing brakes. Engine braking only stops you using the driven wheels, brake discs apply to all wheels.
Engine braking wears transmission components which are considerably more fragile and expensive than replacing brakes. Engine braking only stops you using the driven wheels, brake discs apply to all wheels.
No it doesn't. Synchronized, rev-matched downshifts put negligible load on the drivetrain. Coasting to a stop with the gear already selected, putting it in neutral just before stall does that even less. The stresses produced by acceleration are ballpark estimate around an order of magnitude greater. This can be inferred by the fact that usually the rate of deceleration by engine braking is smaller than the rate of acceleration for a given gear ratio, ergo, the drivetrain is strained less.
And, as long as the car remains in gear there's not much extra wear on the transmission itself (certainly not compared to the torque from the acceleration the preceded it, at least).
For what it's worth, it does makes complete sense to leave the car in gear while braking and not to change to neutral.