Hello, I’m a bit worried and could not sleep last night knowing that I accidentally change the gear on my car to Reverse while the car was moving forward at about 30 mph. It was done by accident when I lean over to grab my small luggage on the floor of the front passenger seat.
I was wondering if anyone or any car mechanic can educate me if my car engine or transmission is in trouble or so.
I drive a manula 2002 Nissan Sentra SER.
Symptom: when the car was going forward and the shift button was accidentally pushed in and went up to forward, the check engine light went up and I changed it back in a matter of 2 sec. (I think about 2 sec. when I noticed it.) Then the car started to go to a stop steadily. Then it stalled with the “check engine” light on. Then I turn the car off and then turn it back on and the “check engine” light went away. Then I drove it home and am worried now.
Question: Is my car in trouble in anyway? Please excuse me because I dont know much about cars. Thanks in advance if anyone can enlighten me on this subject.
I am going to assume the car has an automatic transmission. If the car had a manual transmission, there would have been a very loud grinding and gnashing of gears and sychros. You probably didn’t hurt anything. Automatic transmission rely on hydraulic pressure to operate and when the car shifted into reverse, the transmission tried but because of the speed of the car, the engine died. This stopped the transmission from operating at all. The check engine light came on because the ignition was in the on position and the engine was not running, that is normal. I have hammered automatic transmissions while driving demo derbies and I have never had one fail. It was common to shift between drive and reverse at speeds well above 30 mph without killing the tranny. As long as it shifts okay, you didn’t hurt it.
Is it possible that the reverse clutch (is it called a band) can be eaten up when that happens? I had an idiot friend that did to me on purpose while we were going 60mph my senior year. The car stalled, and after that time if i had to back up a hill and needed some good accelerator action the whole car shuddered and shook rather violently. I had the transmission overhauled last year (b/c my 2nd gear “band” died completely–it went from 1st to “neutral” to 3rd if I had enough speed to shift to 3rd that is) and now the shuddering problem is gone. Same thing or not?
In order to get into reverse from any forward gear in my Dodge transmission you have to release a detent catch with a button on the shift knob. My shift is on the floor. For most of the column mounted levers that I’ve driven (rentals) you have to pull the lever toward you to get past the detent.
These are all methods of protection against accidental shift into reverse. But they are, as my sister used to say, only “fool resistant,” not fool proof.
I did exactly this from about 30-40 mph in a '95 Sentra with about 10,000 miles on it. I sold the car 4 years later with 102,000 miles and absolutely no transmission problems.
If it was a one-time occurance and the car seems to be shifting and behaving fine, then I would not worry about it anymore. Most likely you have caused no major long-term damage.
It doesn’t happen anymore b/c the AT was overhauled last year. But in the short run for a few weeks afterwards it happened, heavy accelerating in reverse caused violent shuddering–felt like driving over 100 small speed bumps. Although the problem happened in the past, I just want to know if that is what caused it. BTW, 1993 Pontiac Grand Prix, 3 speed.
So my secret plan of oneday taking a rental car out on the interstate, getting it up to about 85mph or so, and then shifting into reverse just to watch the transmission go flying out the front grill is just kind of silly?
As long as it’s operating properly you’re okay although shifting into reverse while moving forward is potentially very harmful and inadvisable.speaking from experience
Yeah we talked about it before & assuming you could actually get it in reverse & you don’t fly through the window, the car would be slowing down pretty fast.
I did this in a rented Ford Focus at 55 MPH. The car simply ignored me, and acted as if “R” meant “N”.
I found that if I did it at speeds under about 5 MPH it would actually catch. Of course I did the low-speed tests on very smooth ice to limit potential damage.
Duckster, what are your feelings on having a medium sized terrier riding in the car? When I was growing up, the family schnauzer had a habit of hopping between the bucket seats from front to back to front in the car until he got settled, and one time, he managed to shift the automatic into neutral in the process.
This dog also discovered how power windows work when his paw slipped and he almost took his muzzle off rolling the window up, but the crowning moment would be this one time at a toll booth where he overheard the toll taker asking about him and he tried to get closer to her. I guess he was thinking we were at the bank or a fast food place and he’d be getting a treat, but either way, he ended up jumping down in front of the driver’s legs and sitting on the gas pedal. Luckily, the driver had foot firmly on the break, or we would have shot off like a rocket. The fun part was the poor dog trying to turn around in the limited amount of space he had, because the driver sure as hell wasn’t about to take the foot off the break to give the dog more room to manuver.
tnguyen good post. Sounds to me like your car was smart enough to realize that you put it into reverse whilst traveling forward at a great speed. It then informed you and forced you to pull over, but didn’t shut off power steering or stuff like that. You told it you understood, by turning the key off then on.
From my experience at 60MPH, reverse stopped the back wheels, and stalled the engine right fast. I put it in netural, started the engine, and kept going. The 71 Ford Pickup continued to work hard for years.
If your car didn’t stall at speed, and or lurch, there’s nothing wrong, if it lurched there’s most likely nothing wrong. (providing nothing sounds funny now)
are you sure that you didn’t accidentally turn yourself around and just think that you were going in reverse? under any circumstances, i think that your car will do fine. a friend of mine knocked his car into reverse once and never suffered for it.
