I just looked at a Cabrio and it had this shift pattern:
| |
2 4
I noticed this before I took the test drive, but I still ended up going into reverse instead of 1st once(with a sweet grinding sound). I’m sure I’d get used to it, but why do they have to be different?
Why would VW do this? Is there some advantage I haven’t noticed?
Edit: Doesn’t seem to be lining up correctly. 2nd should be below first, and 4th below 3rd
I used to wonder that too, and never found out. But I do recall it was really hard to accidentally shift into reverse- you had to push the shifter straight down, toward the floor of the car, then to the left, then forward. This was on a '90 Golf, so maybe they’ve changed the pattern since then.
It’s not really that unusual. My Hyundai Elantra has the same shift pattern and so did my buddies BMW.
There might be an argument to be made for keeping the reverse gear farther away from the higher gears, to reduce the chances of an accidental high-speed shift into reverse. I assume (although I await correction from car gurus) that it’d not be as bad to “miss” first gear when downshifting from second—and how often would you do that anyhow?—as it would be to accidentally downshift from fifth gear to reverse instead of fourth when tooling down the highway at 60 mph.
A lot of cars other than VW have that shift pattern. The shift pattern basically results from the arrangement of gears and shafts inside the transmission.
This how stuff works article explains it fairly well. On the 5th page of the article there’s even an animated graphic you can play with to see how the various gears are engaged based on where you have the shift lever.
In case it’s not clear from the how stuff works article, the typical reverse under 5th pattern has reverse on the same shaft as the 5th gear, but uses an idler gear to make reverse. What the OP is calling the VW pattern has a separate shaft for the reverse gear instead of using an idler gear. It’s just different ways of accomplishing the same thing.
As I recall, my brother’s early-70’s Beetle had a similar sort of shift pattern. My 2004 Passat has the ‘traditional’ pattern with Reverse underneath 5th.
VW has always had this shift pattern. My 1989 and 1992 VW Jetta did as well as every other VW I know of.
So, it’s Hitler’s fault?
(For the Godwin.)
Porsche does it as well. Maybe it is a German thing.
This is a pretty typical Euro car setup. On every car like this I’ve driven, there’s some sort of lock-out mechanism to stop you from accidentally slipping it into reverse. Like on VW’s you have to push down, or on Saabs you have to pull up on the little ring thing on the shifter. Was the Cabrio you were driving older? At least on the old classic air-cooled VW’s, the lockout being gone (i.e. you could shift it into R without pushing down) was a pretty common effect of aging on the transaxles.
Are you questioning the push down mechanism, or the placement of reverse in the pattern? I’ve had several cars now that you pushed down to enter into reverse, and that doesn’t seem at all odd to me. But that last few cars I’ve owned before my current VW all placed reverse at the other side of the pattern, to the right and down from fourth on a four speed, or underneath fifth on a five. I DID find the placement a little odd - this one’s a six speed.
I had an old Volvo with that shift pattern as well. IIRC, you had to pull a ring on the shift lever before it would let you put it in R.
This may explain why the Germans lost the war.
Twice.
Didn’t Porsche design the VDub?
.
My BMW is like this. There is an very noticeable extra effort (and distance) required to get into reverse. In the 7 years or so I’ve owned the car, I think I’ve accidentally put it into reverse maybe twice.
The Porsches I’ve seen have a shift pattern like this:
R 2 4
│ │ │
├─┼─┤
│ │ │
1 3 5
Of course, both of those were from the '70s, so maybe they’ve changed in the last few decades. But it’s Porsche, so maybe they haven’t.
(I remember someone told me they were bad cars for autocrossing because you’d lose a little time on every shift between first and second.)
This is supposed to be a better configuration for racing. A Mercedes 190E Cosworth with this shift pattern was featured on the British show Top Gear, where, after making a big deal of this being superior, James May accidentally started out in reverse since he was so used to the more common configuration of first being up and to the left (season 15 episode 2, for those who are interested). This ended up being a running joke through the show, and even the Stig “accidentally” started it in reverse when they did a timed lap with the car.
It’s the same thing in Australia but because we drive on the left and the driver’s seat is on the right and you change gears left handed, the pattern makes even more sense. Reverse is the furtherest away and once you are rolling 1 to 2 , and 3 to 4 are just little flicks and 2 to 3 and 4 to 5 little pushes toward the steering wheel.
I wondered this too. I drove one car like that and hated it because:
In a tight parking space I had to inch forward in first, clutch in and quickly shift to reverse while turning the wheel full lock and inching backward, then repeat in a busy area.
I found trying to go quickly from first to reverse near impossible, because I had to pull back, push lever in, then left and up. In my own car with reverse under the 5, I can make the change from first to reverse as the car rolls and be able to do a tight maneuver pretty quickly (just pull stick away in a downward movement with a little right flick at the end).
And that was in Europe with a right hand car, making reverse away from my seat.