you decide to put the car into reverse. What would happen to my 1998 automatic Toyota Camry?
I know from experience that putting a car in park while driving makes a horendous ratcheting sound until the car slows enough for the ‘park’ mechanism to ‘kick in’. Not a fun experience.
But what about reverse, say, seventy miles an hour?
Try it, I dare ya. Actually, I don’t think modern cars will allow you to do that. Check your owner’s manual and see if it says anything about a tranmission interlock.
How’d you get to park without hitting reverse. Most American automatic transmissions go PRND21 or something like that.
I think most newer automatic transmissions won’t let you shift past N. And newer standards won’t let you go into reverse if the car is going forward.
Years ago when working at my grandfather’s factory he had an Olds Cutlass and I would drive him to work as part of my menial job. Well, during the gas crunch in the 1970s (should tell you how old and shitty this car was), grandpa had the thing converted to a diesel motor (his factory guys could work miracles on cars), then when it was over, had the thing converted back to unleaded. Only problem is, during the conversion, the letters on the steering column no longer matched the arrow indicator, and thus, when you were in ‘Drive’ it looked like you had the car in ‘2’.
Well, one day we are driving down the freeway on the way home and grandpa (in one of his more senial moments) says "What the hell are doing driving down the freeway in low gear?) and reaches over and cranks the gear shifter two over to the left (instead of one) shifting the car into reverse at 70 mph.
The result? A HORRENDOUS sound, followed by the engine immediately stalling. We pulled over to the side of the road and were able to get the car restarted, though it had a very minor rattle after that. It still ran fine afterwards, though I suspect something in the transmission had its life substantially shortened after that, and he ended up selling the car about a year later, although not because of that.
I can’t of course speak for a 1998 Toyota Camry, though I would suspect more modern cars would probably have some kind of mechanism that actually wouldn’t allow you to shift into these gears. Most cars nowadays won’t let you shift out of ‘Park’ unless your foot is on the brake, so why not going the other direction? Although the fact you got it INTO ‘Park’ leads me to believe 1) you are not driving one of these aforementioned cars and 2) you are NEVER driving my car!
Actually, I’m not the only one I know who has gone straight into park while driving. A few others have admitted to being this dense.
In my case I have a lever that sticks out of the floor with a handle and a safety tab on the side. I drive with my right hand on the shifter and occasionally play with the tab. Well, I was playing with it a little too aggresively and WHAMMO. I was going maybe 10 miles an hour, but it got my attention real fast.
If you do it fast enough, I think it avoids engaging reverse and goes straight to park.
I have to add that YES my foot was beginning to brake at the time and I was going relatively slow.
The others I seen, well, only one, was an older car with the shifter on the column. Went straight into park, made a loud ‘clicking noise’ and jerked to a stop.
BTW… It it truly didn’t happen to me then why would I include the ‘clicking’ sound noise that we both heard?
I was my friends car (1991 mazda 323) a few years back. We had this running joke called the “miser special” where you would get going 80 or 90 MPH, and then put it in neutral (please don’t ask). Well, after we coasted back down to 50MPH, he goes to put the car back in drive, and some unknown reason, instead of drive, he puts it into reverse.
The result was almost identical to what Yarster describes, an ungodly loud and disturbing grindy noise that lasted for about a half a second, and then the car stalled. He rolled over to the side of the road, and after much cursing and disbelief, he tried to start the car. Much to our amazement, it started just fine and we were on our way. Nothing ever came out of it, that I know, as he had the car for several years afterward.
And BTW, that was the final rendition of the “miser special”.
I haven’t done that with an automatic, but I have done it with a manual. I was going about 60 when the car in front of me decided to slam on their brakes. In my reaction to avoid the car I jammed down on the clutch, rammed it into reverse, and popped the clutch.
Luckily I didn’t drop the transmission. And the car stopped rather quickly.
My sister did this once in a Pontiac Fiero. She was racing, and manually shifting the automatic trans. She went from 2nd to reverse. She never told me exactly what it did, but her friend that was with her at the time had a little brass plaque engraved “1-2-Reverse =BITCH=” so it couldn’t have been good.
It’d definitely make some horrific noises, though. Kinda like the time my Jeep’s transfer case decided to shift itself into 4wd low gear…on the highway…:eek:
This reminds me of something that my friend did to his car, though I have to confess to being the originator of this idea. (Hey, he asked)
My friend Chris was told by another friend that a good way to race another car from a dead stop was to put the car in mountain gear, causing the car to accelerate a bit faster than in normal drive (I don’t know if this is so or why it’s so).
Upon being told this, I asked what would happen if, instead of doing this, you put the parking brake on (with the car in drive), and gunned the engine, and then, upon the traffic light turning green, “throw down the parking brake”.
Hey, what can I say? I didn’t force him to do it–and I wouldn’t have done it with MY car (I wasn’t the type to go racing mine, for one thing).
Anyway, what ensued was similar to the above: a horrific grinding noise (actually, it sounded like the engine had fallen out). I don’t believe the car stalled, but it’s possible it may have. IF it did, though, we had no trouble starting it.
I don’t know about long term damage to the car. It was already pretty old and in bad shape.
I don’t know about a Fiero. I can tell you that I had a friend whose mom owned a 1965 Chevy SS 396 with triples. It went P-R-N-2-1. And it was a rocket if you shifted it manually. So old Dave was showing off down my street. He lays a couple hundred feet of rubber in low and then taps the lever. But he tapped it too hard and hit reverse. He was going about 70 and the engine was spinning about 6,500RPM. The transmission and driveshaft evaporated in a huge cloud of smoke and spray. A piece of the driveshaft caught the pavement, lifted the car, and tore the rear axle loose, but it didn’t actually escape from the springs.
Poor old Dave…Jolliffe was his last name.
What sort of car was that? Doesn’t seem possible to me. All that could happen with a modern stick shift, is that you are grinding the wheels of the transmission while you are TRYING to push it in. Mind you, you WILL grind them - even with your foot firmly on the clutch. You see, the tranny wheel for reverse is going in the OPPOSITE direction of the one you’re trying to get it into contact with. There is no way you could get the lever in reverse at 60, and pop the clutch like the way you described. At least not with a modern manual transmission.
I know this because of my lovely girlfriend. I let her drive once when I was really tired. After a few minutes on the motorway, she decides that the engine “makes too much noise” and needs an upshift. The problem was that is was ALREADY in fifth. Yup, she grabs the stick and yanks it straight back, towards the reverse. Lots of grinding noises because she tried it three, four times in a row before I woke up and slapped her hand away from the stick. The transmission seems fine though, no serious damage done. But I’m sure it would be damaging if you did this every single day.
Yeah Tark, that really does not seem very plausible.
BTW, try the brake next time ! ! I heard if you press on that hard, the car will stop very quickly too. And you will not ruin anything.
– Where the hell did you learn such a technique anyway??? My “reaction” would be to HIT THE BRAKE,
I was watching an old episode of ‘Cops’ (or something) and among their more trivial duties was stopping cars that “are left with the engine running and ‘slip’ into gear”.
The car revolves in a circle. How can it go without some contact with the ‘gas’ pedal?
Well, an automatic will roll along at a few kilometers an hour (say, 5 or 6) when in drive, even when idling. Toss in a broken steer lock, and presto, ghost car!
Irish_Bill,
Have you never owned a car? Seriously… I am not trying to be mean?
If you have an automatic, put it in drive and do not touch the pedal. The car will move. Same if you put it in reverse and do not touch the gas pedal, or accelerator, or whatever you call it where you are. The car’s engine is idling… that idle is enough to move the vehicle.
Also, if you have a manual… it will also move without the gas pedal, or whatever you call it. Put the car into first and bring the clutch to the friction point. The car will start to move on its own. You can now take your foot completely off the clutch. You can even shift it into second and get up to about 10mph without ever touching the accelerator.
BTW, this is a good way to learn to drive a manual. When a friend asks me to teach them to drive a stick shift, I take them in a parking lot or whatever and I do not let them use the gas pedal for the first hour or so. I make them get used to the clutch first. I have them start from a stop and get into second gear without the gas. Once they have become used to the clutch and how it works and so on, then we start using the gas pedal and getting into the higher gears.
If your engine has enough power (torque, really), you can idle a manual up to top gear. I think a Ferrari could idle in fifth, and it would probably do some 70 km/h. My car can idle up to third gear without stalling, at some 40 km/h. I use this in slow moving traffic at times. Keep a little gap, and just let it roll. Traffic jams are the only moments I wish I had an automatic.