AT & neutral
03-07-2009 | 12:02 PM
#1
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From: Pacific Beach, San Diego, Ca
AT & neutral
So the owners manual says you shouldn't ever shift into neutral when driving. Which makes sense to me, I don't know why I'd ever need it. But then why do they have it so easily accessible from the drive position? The other day, I forgot I wasn't in manual mode (to the left) and I went to drop into 3rd and I felt a forward force realizing that I shifted into neutral by accident! Do you guys think I hurt anything? Ugh, I'm just glad it wasn't reverse 
03-07-2009 | 12:20 PM
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From: Pacific Beach, San Diego, Ca
03-08-2009 | 08:47 PM
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The part about not shifting into neutral when driving is about people "coasting" in neutral (which is illegal in a lot of states) and not about damaging something, well, unless you had it under load it would hit the rev limiter. Also, neutral is easy to get to so if something happened and your throttle got locked up, you just bump it into neutral to remove power from the drivetrain.
03-08-2009 | 11:10 PM
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From: Northern Virginia
Whether you can damage the transmission by coasting in neutral depends on whether the transmission's pump is pumping enough in that mode - sort of like the question of whether you can push start a car with an automatic. I also suspect that putting it back into gear at speed is not going to be very good for it unless you rev match.
In the US, neutral is required by law to be next to drive, separating it from reverse. The PRNDL rule, which was one of the dozen or so items GSA specified back in 1965 or 1966. Those specs were the birth of federal government safety rules for cars.
Before that, some cars had PNDLR shift patterns. That led to some amusing accidental reverse accidents. PRNDL puts a buffer between forward and reverse. If you think accidentally shifting into neutral is annoying, try accidentally shifting into reverse at highway speeds.
Ken
In the US, neutral is required by law to be next to drive, separating it from reverse. The PRNDL rule, which was one of the dozen or so items GSA specified back in 1965 or 1966. Those specs were the birth of federal government safety rules for cars.
Before that, some cars had PNDLR shift patterns. That led to some amusing accidental reverse accidents. PRNDL puts a buffer between forward and reverse. If you think accidentally shifting into neutral is annoying, try accidentally shifting into reverse at highway speeds.
Ken
03-08-2009 | 11:21 PM
#12
Also, on the reverse thing.
They did a MythBusters about that. It basically does no damage to the car (this was tested on a 90 something Taurus, which has a fraction of the sophistaction of our 8). I think he said the "engine light" came on, but it went away after he restarted.
By no means is it GOOD for your tranny, but I don't think it would be cataclysmic to your car.
They did a MythBusters about that. It basically does no damage to the car (this was tested on a 90 something Taurus, which has a fraction of the sophistaction of our 8). I think he said the "engine light" came on, but it went away after he restarted.
By no means is it GOOD for your tranny, but I don't think it would be cataclysmic to your car.
03-09-2009 | 01:08 AM
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From: Pacific Beach, San Diego, Ca
Whether you can damage the transmission by coasting in neutral depends on whether the transmission's pump is pumping enough in that mode - sort of like the question of whether you can push start a car with an automatic. I also suspect that putting it back into gear at speed is not going to be very good for it unless you rev match.
In the US, neutral is required by law to be next to drive, separating it from reverse. The PRNDL rule, which was one of the dozen or so items GSA specified back in 1965 or 1966. Those specs were the birth of federal government safety rules for cars.
Before that, some cars had PNDLR shift patterns. That led to some amusing accidental reverse accidents. PRNDL puts a buffer between forward and reverse. If you think accidentally shifting into neutral is annoying, try accidentally shifting into reverse at highway speeds.
Ken
In the US, neutral is required by law to be next to drive, separating it from reverse. The PRNDL rule, which was one of the dozen or so items GSA specified back in 1965 or 1966. Those specs were the birth of federal government safety rules for cars.
Before that, some cars had PNDLR shift patterns. That led to some amusing accidental reverse accidents. PRNDL puts a buffer between forward and reverse. If you think accidentally shifting into neutral is annoying, try accidentally shifting into reverse at highway speeds.
Ken
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