Engaging reverse gear in a car involves pushing a gear between two shafts to engage the two sets of teeth. This process can cause shock and potentially break the transmission when the wheels are turning forward at a decent speed. If you accidentally or intentionally switch to reverse gear while moving forward, it is unlikely to cause damage. Modern cars will shift back into drive when the car is at a crawl (less than five mph).
Changing gears to reverse while driving is impossible for both manual and automatic transmissions. Older cars may experience engine stalling and acting like it’s in neutral, which can be dangerous. Misaligned brake cables can also wear down the brake pad and throw off the adjustment.
In a 4-wheel drive vehicle, the process is similar to reversing in a 2-wheel drive, but the wheels turn at a different rate than when driving forward. The motor will still be spinning for forward motion, but with reversal of the current. Shifting to reverse while driving at high speed can cause the car to lose traction and stability, making it hard to control. This can result in injury or death for you and others on the road.
Consumer Reports’ technicians tested nine cars on the test track to see what happens when a driver pulls the electronic parking brake while driving. Issues include gears ending up in a deadlocking position, breaking of the teeth of gears that have to engage, and gears working at high speed with problems shifting to R. When the gear in the transmission is broken, replacing the vehicle’s transmission is inevitable.
📹 What Happens If You Put A MANUAL Transmission In REVERSE While Driving?
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you accidentally put a manual transmission in REVERSE while driving? Shop AV …
Is it bad to put a car in drive while rolling backwards?
If you’re going less than a mile or two per hour, you’re not damaging the transmission by shifting from reverse to drive. Automatic transmissions have a bit of “slop.” The engine’s power goes through a fluid (automatic transmission fluid). Dear Car Talk: My husband drives badly. He shifts into drive while the car is still rolling backward when backing out of our driveway or a parking spot. Is this hurting the automatic transmission? He recently bought a 2012 Chevy Traverse in red. It’s a dream car. I was taught not to shift gears while the car is moving in the opposite direction. I know cars have changed a lot since I started driving. Is it still safe to shift between reverse and drive without stopping?
What happens if you switch gears while driving?
3. Don’t change gears while the car is moving. Don’t change gears while the car is moving. When you shift gears while moving, you use your transmission, not the brakes, to stop the car. The car will stop, but your automatic transmission will wear out. It’s hard to repair or replace the transmission band.
4. Don’t coast in neutral. Coasting in neutral can save fuel. Don’t coast in neutral. You’re not in control. You can also react faster and safer if you drive a manual. Don’t do launches. Launches are when you accelerate suddenly from a standstill or neutral. This can wear out your transmission, which is expensive.
What happens if you shift from 5th gear to reverse?
This is what would happen: If it’s a manual transmission car, you can’t put it in reverse if it’s in 5th gear. You’ll hear a grinding sound. I’ve seen it done once in a manual transmission vehicle.
What happens if you accidentally shift from 5th gear to reverse?
This is what would happen: If it’s a manual transmission car, you can’t put it in reverse if it’s in 5th gear. You’ll hear a grinding sound. I’ve seen it done once in a manual transmission vehicle.
What happens if you go into reverse at 70mph?
On a modern car, it’s impossible to do so because the computer will sense the error and prevent the transmission from engaging in reverse at high speed. It will ignore the input until the vehicle stops.
What are the signs that your transmission is going out?
Here are seven signs your transmission might be broken. Clunking. Has your car started making new sounds? Smell like burning. Gears are grinding. … No or slow response. … Fluids are leaking. … There’s a light on. … Neutral is noisy. Some cars last 200,000 miles or more. Not everyone is so lucky. Even with regular maintenance, your transmission may break down. Your vehicle may be experiencing transmission problems if you see these signs. Here are seven signs that your transmission might be broken.
What happens if you put reverse gear at high speed?
If you put reverse gear in an old stick shift, it makes a loud noise. The gears try to engage in reverse, but the speed is too high. It’ll be anticlimactic. The car won’t stop suddenly or change direction quickly. The transmission won’t explode like in the movies! The driver must be focused when driving. Don’t let your hand rest on the gear when you don’t need to. Warn people not to get close to the gears when the car is running.
What is the maximum speed a car can go in reverse gear?
The fastest you can go in reverse is limited by the engine and the gears. Most cars can go about 30-40 km/h (20-25 mph) in reverse. Some high-performance cars go faster in reverse, while some commercial vehicles go slower.
What happens if I put my car in reverse while driving?
2. Your vehicle may stall and make a grinding noise. If your vehicle doesn’t have a reverse inhibitor or is broken, putting it in reverse while driving will stall the engine. Your vehicle’s automatic transmission has gears that move it down the road. The gears spin in opposite directions to move the car forward and backward. The automatic transmission uses a torque converter and transmission fluid to change gears and send power from the engine to the wheels.
You put your car in reverse. What do I do now? If you shift your automatic transmission into reverse while driving forward, stay calm! Panicking can make you make bad decisions. If your car stalls, let off the gas, shift to neutral, and coast to the side of the road. If the engine stalls, you may lose power steering and power brakes, so stop the car safely on the side of the road. Make sure your car stops, then shift into park. Turn off the engine and start the car again.
What happens if you go from reverse to drive without stopping?
When shifting to park, do it right! You should always come to a stop before shifting into park. When you shift your automatic transmission into P, a parking pawl is engaged. The pawl locks the transmission, preventing it from moving the wheels. Shifting gears while moving can damage the locking mechanism. If this part fails, your vehicle could roll away. Also, always use the parking brake for extra protection. Transmission repairs are expensive and time-consuming, so please follow our advice. If you’re not sure, just stop before shifting gears. Following this advice can help your automatic transmission last longer and save you money on car repairs. Call or visit Quality Tune Up Car Care Center for automotive repairs.
Is reversing bad for your car?
Questions You Might Have After Reading: Can reversing while moving damage the transmission? If you reverse while moving forward, it can damage the transmission. What are the risks of reversing while the car is moving? Reversing while the car is still moving can damage the transmission, cost a lot to fix, and even cause the transmission to fail. Why should you come to a complete stop before shifting into reverse? If you come to a complete stop, the transmission will disengage from forward motion, preventing damage when you engage reverse.
📹 What happens if you put your car in REVERSE while driving? (Things NOT to do while driving)
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I was completely shocked you didn’t drop the transmission on the first attempt. I’m really impressed you didn’t even lose the reverse gear after all those attempts. I was just picturing the reverse gear completely smooth with metal chucks in the transmission fluid. Guess it really is “Built Ford tough” 🙂 couldn’t resist that one.
I have always worked with a dispatch truck that had 6 speeds, and I always had to take the same route on the same highway. One day my truck went into the shop for maintenance so they assigned me the backup truck which is identical but with the difference that it only has 5 speeds and the reverse where the 6th is. I was doing my route as normal when by muscle memory I engaged “6th”, which was actually reverse and released the clutch… it was at that moment that I became aware of what I had done, I felt panic I thought the transmission would explode or the truck would stop suddenly, losing control at high speed, it was the end for me; Those and many other fatalistic thoughts passed through my head in a fraction of a second, but fortunately for me, the transmission safety mechanism did not allow the reverse to be engaged and the vehicle only remained in neutral. That was the greatest feeling of relief I have ever experienced in my life, but a feeling of tension remained in me for several hours.
You’re got balls of steel, sir. I salute you. My Honda blocks reverse when the revs are high enough. I have a 4 speed car (my Fiero) a 6 speed car (my Corvette) and my 5 speed Honda. I accidentally tried to shift into reverse because I forgot that I don’t have a 6th gear on the Honda, so that is a situation where you could accidentally try to shift into reverse because you thought it was a different gear entirely and the position matches up
I’m impressed you got it in reverse in the first place. Most old-school manual transmissions physically engage the teeth of the reverse gear. If the vehicle is going forwards this should be impossible because the gears will be spinning in opposite directions. All you’ll get is a lot of gear grinding.
As a new driving just learning, I’ve driven 2 cars and one has Reverse where the other one’s 1st gear is, the other Reverse is where 6th gear is. When you said “Why would you accidentally put your transmission in reverse, you really wouldnt” I was thinking damn dude, wanna bet? Seems pretty easy to get them mixed up if cars have the R in all different spots. After seeing how hard it was to actually force it into reverse though, I don’t think I’m worried anymore lol, thanks for this article.
Well, why would someone accidentally do this? There is a simple answer: I learned driving in a 6 gear manual transmission, then I got my own car ( a bit older) which has only 5 gears, and reverse is on the same slot as on the reverse slot. Guys guess what I did on Autobahn with 80mph. Yeap I changed into ROCKET Mode.
Used to lock up the brakes on manual 4wd pickup on snowy road or ice and throw it in reverse and spin wheels backwards while sliding forward. Almost got in bad accident when abs malfunctioned and putting it in park or reverse did nothing. Liked the article! Old cars rule. We used to turn off car while driving for a few seconds then turn it back on and it would backfire.
I’ve had several stick shift cars all GM a 1978, 1992 and 1993 in all of them if I recall correctly they would grind if I bypassed the reverse lever to get it in to reverse while driving forward at a higher speed. on a stuck situation the back and forth at slow speed is very useful in a stick shift to get your car out of the snow. I never did it on purpose, just that the reverse was a similar position and I might not have been paying attention to my shifting.
The (mostly) quiet engagement is probably because it has a synchronized reverse. Some Mazda transmissions do, Ford used some Mazda transmissions. Once it is engaged, the trauma is over, releasing the clutch seems abusive, but the torque applied to the transmission is limited by the low traction of the rear tires. Overspeeding the clutch disc could happen, maybe. Reverse is a low gear ratio, so the disc is made to spin pretty fast. No doubt it’s a little hard on that synchro. You can do the same thing without grinding in an unsynchronized reverse type trans by braking hard enough to lock both drive wheels, putting it in reverse, then releasing brakes and clutch. Easier to do this on snow….on dry pavement, the rapid deceleration is distracting…on snow or ice, it can be done smoothly. I did it for “fooling around” purposes, but it’s more fun to do donuts, once you get the technique down, the “reserve while going forward” isn’t that exciting. That security guy needs to be reminded that it isn’t his road! Or was it on the property of some company?
even older cars and trucks that had manual transmissions have a safety to them. wen in gear 1st to whatever your highest gear is engages a small safety pin to prevent you from putting it into reverse. wen you try to go in reverse while in gear you have to overcome the pin thats why it took to hands and finally that snaping sound witch was the pin breaking. sometimes they can partly snap and prevent you from engaging reverse again but it will be easyer to overcome it past the slip point and sometime it just fully snaps off.
Most manual transmissions have a gate type system that engages when you are going forwards and it’s made to stop you from going into reverse accidentally, I have an 02 subaru impreza and I accidentally went from 5th into reverse in traffic going 80km/h and the gate failed but I have since tried it on backroads and the gate has worked fine so that is why it was so hard to get into reverse
I did this with a U-hal. I needed a big truck and when i got in it was a stick. I never drove one before and I said well today I’m gonna learn. I knew the basics from my friend letting me try once and having a motorcycle. It stalled a few times and at one point I did put it in reverse. No issues, made it home and was able to drive it. That was how I learned to drive a manual transmission.
I’ve always thought that in case of emergency brake failure one could put it in reverse regulating the pressure with the clutch to decelerate, it would obviously grind the gears engaging at the begginning, but in my understanding of manual transmissions is that it would just be on axle of gears changing it’s rotation direction and then one could just grind the clutch to decelerate.
Did you shift into neutral first? Or just try to go straight from 5th to reverse? Usually, there’s a reverse lockout that prevents someone from accidentally thinking their car has one more gear than it actually does. This lockout is usually disengaged when the shifter is returned to the central neutral position. But I’m not sure if there’s an additional lockout mechanism in the gearbox to stop people from bypassing the main lockout while moving.
My first car was handed down to me from my parents and it had a shifter like this where reverse gear was in the bottom right slot with NO reverse lock. My dad accidentally tried to shift into reverse on the Autobahn once, after he had been driving a company car with a six speed manual for two weeks. Luckily it’s really hard to put it into reverse while driving, so all that happened was that we heard a grinding noise and got a little scare. Was a great car, but I had to sell it off for export last month. It wouldn’t pass inspection and the necessary repairs were way more than it was worth. My ‘new’ car has a six-speed manual and although the clutch feels very different and took some getting used to, the only time I ended up stalling the engine was when I wanted to shift into reverse and out of habit put it in the bottom right slot, which of course is sixth gear now. That hurt my pride a bit, but I guess shifting into sixth instead of reverse is better than the other way around! 😅 I still make that mistake every now and then, but have since always caught it before trying to start off in sixth…
i acctually did it accidantly while in 5th and i found out halv sec later and quickly put it back in 4th, i heard screecheng lucky i didnt move my foot off the transmission pedal so nothing happend, basicly you would kill your car pretty fast, i am surprised this car lasted this long while doing this, also gears for transmissions are on the drivers side of the car so that sider will be the first to halt, you would find yourself going right even though youre wheels arent going on that side. great article, never try this you will hurt yself and others or best case scenario you ll pay 5000$ for new set of transmission gear. Peace
It happened exactly in the same way that I expected it to have. The transmission completely goes into reverse, and as soon as you release the clutch and give the throttle, the wheels started to spin on reverse (due to the reverse gear) and at the same time the vehicle is moving forward. So definitely the wheel spin or the burnout should has to happen. I think at some point we can do this trick if the brakes fail. But it can cost you a transmission.
My best friend did this with his 78 Chevy Chevette all the time at over 30MPH. Yes, front-wheel drive! It was fun! The damned car ran for years with no trans troubles. This was 1984 and 85. He junked it in 88 or 89 because it was so severely rusted out that it began sitting at an weird angle and steering wildly.
Looks like it’s a jeep with rear wheel traction. While braking (or going reverse), the weight gets increased on the front wheels and less weight is put on the rear wheels, allowing it to slide and put less stress on your transmission. Try it with a vehicle where the front wheels are driven. Then your transmission surely gets put to the test, as well as your engine while trying to stay in control of the car.
I feel like just looking at how a manual transmission works would probably explain why this was so difficult to do. Since reverse works by turning the axle in the opposite direction, another gear is necessary to convert the rotation from the engine. Kind of hard to do when you have two gears turning against each other.
Dude! Loved the article. I have an 04′ automatic Ranger and I love it. I had a 13′ focus that got hit and totaled 2 weeks after I paid it off. I bought the Ranger with the insurance money and I have to say… It’s wayyyyyy better than the focus. My first vehicle was a 92′ Firebird. Loved that thing, but I think my Ranger is my favorite vehicle I’ve owned
The first time that I tried turning around by reversing round a corner, I naturally assumed that I should go into reverse as I was coasting to a halt so that I could start backing as soon I’d stopped, but when I did the car made a rather disturbing rattling noise. I did idly wonder afterwards what would have happened if I’d lifted the clutch before I’d stopped, but I could think of at least 5 excellent reasons not to try and find out.
So, my first car was a 98 Ford contour with the 2l ztec 5 spd… the brakes went on me when I was going down a snowy hill. I was able to put the transmission into reverse and use the clutch as a brake 😅 I continued to do this for about a week until I scrapped the car. I literally thought you could do it in any type of manual vehicle until I started working on cars… now I just live confused of my childhood lol
That is the funniest shit I have ever seen in my life dude 😅🤣😂🤣😂🤣😅🤣😂😂…Does reverse still function besides using it as an extreme emergency break lol!!! I applaud you sir, you have done what millions of us have contemplated, wanted to see, or wanted to try – but could not risk the presumed consequences of actually doing it. You are a legend!
That guy stopping you when clearly there’s almost nothing around, no residential noise pollution to worry about, nobody around on the road to be in danger and someone sees a camera tripod off the side of the road and freaks out and calls the authorities 🤦♂️ngl that just irritates me to no end. The rest of the article was a delight 😅
Well, engineers kind of thought about this, and the old school stuff (because they have none or almost no electronics) are built with mechanical features to prevent some things to happen on certain conditions but allow on other conditions. The biggest reason, as you clearly notice while doing it, why a transmission is not supposed to engage reverse while driving forward is because the car will slide instead of driving, and may not so gracefully move into and another car. If you do it many many times, over and over and over again, of course eventually you will wear out early some parts of the entire drivetrain assembly, but there’s no reason why this should happen after the very first try unless the transmission is already broken from something else before.
I did this accidentally kinda in a 76 parisianne. The engine stopped and continued rolling till i stopped. It was an automatic transission. Once stopped, put in park, wiped my brow clear of sweat with 40 towels, and tuened the key. Just turned on… procreeded to drive away. Car was sold a couple years later. The sound was terrifying though in the moment.
I accidentally did this on someone else’s old van with a nearly broken automatic transmission. The selector freely moved without having to push a button or pull it out in any way, no brake requirement, a broken gear indicator, and only had just enough resistance to no fall down into a lower gear selector from it’s own weight…it didn’t reverse after that.
I think the important takeaway from this for people that are relatively new to manual or just curious is: No you will never accidentally shift your car into reverse while driving even if you do happen to try it by mistake, it won’t let you, definitely not that easily, and with newer cars, something completely different will probably happen from what was in this article such as it not even being possible to go into the R position, or if it does, it treats it as Neutral until you come to a stop. Unsure on that part, just a guess, but the important thing is you are safe from putting your car into reverse accidentally
is the screetching sound just from releasing clutch in reverse or is it cause u pressed the gas? Looking into the footage from inside the car, it looks like u did booth at once, I wonder what would happen if u just release clutch, since when beeing still, the car will already go back just from releasing clutch
First time I’ve seen reverse drifting, now this is super interesting. I thought the transmission would blow up. I still don’t know how exactly can you drop it in reverse, because as far as I know the wheels and the trans are always connected, the clutch disengages the engine only. I guess the synchros have to do all the heavy lifting. Can somebody clarify?
there is something very important you should know about cameras and filming for smoothly slow motion on your action cams. In order to get nice slow motion on your slow moments that you want in a smooth way you have to record your article in 60fps and then in edit, you can slow it down 50% and that will give you 30fps which is still smooth and if you want a lil bit more then you can go till 24fps so you might reduce to 40% speed. Resume: Record in 60 fps always and for nice slow motion moments reduce footage to 50% for 30 fps or 40% for 24 fps.
I have to admit that I thought the moment you shifted to reverse gear your gearbox would be history, that safety feature programmed into the latest car transmission control units is definitely a good thing as there is always the chance that reverse gear will accidentally be selected one way or another, and with a replacement gearbox costing $3000-$4000AU for my 2010 Holden cruize there’s no way i’d try it, it’s unlikely it would have that safety feature.
you have an electronic transmission. the trans controller refused to select reverse because of the vehicle’s speed. if you had an older auto trans with direct selection you would have locked up the wheels, possibly snapping the trans output shaft and crashing because of the sudden change in velocity of the wheels. in a rear wheel drive car it would have been similar to just pulling the ebrake and locking up the wheels with respect to the cars reaction to the gear selection. at low speeds you would have just lunched your transmission and probably not crashed. a manual is not that different in results. I am very shocked that you tried this on a public highway.
I inadvertently selected Reverse on my 2016 Amarok Highline yesterday and panicked! I immediately reselected Drive, but selecting Reverse didn’t cause damage, the car simply continued, but I don’t know whether the transmission went into Neutral or not, or whether the reverse camera came on. I was too busy at the time thinking expensive thoughts! Thanks for doing this for us auto users.
It’s very dangerous to put your car in reverse while driving. My dad once did it by mistake while driving his 1979 Mercedes benz 280e w115 automatic. The car started skidding and swerving. When the car stopped we were a couple of meters of the road with the car facing the opposite direction. The engine turned off and the transmission locked. Please never put your car in reverse while driving especially with older cars it’s dangerous
I’ve done the push start one on my 2017 Hyundai and it’s the same. Going 67 mph and the car doesn’t turn off. That’s a safety feature. Also when driving below 5 mph it turns off which is another safety feature in case if your car is on fire and you got into an accident where the car smokes and you can push the button to turn it off without pressing the brake pedal.
The difference is in older cars when you moved the selector you physically moved the lever on the transmission. In a modern car when you move the selector (or any switch) you are sending a “request” to the computer that you’d like to change gear. If the computer determines its detrimental to the system it won’t let you do it. That’s why the fuel door or trunk won’t open if you accidentally hit the button while at speed.
I’ve unintentionally done this on a car that doesn’t have the safety lockout. I used to drive an old ’85 Camaro, which had a purely hydraulic/mechanical transmission with no fancy electronics, and my friend decided to screw with me while driving by putting in neutral randomly while driving. Well, one time he pushed a little too hard and put it in reverse while I was cruising at 35 MPH, and it did engage reverse. I saw him moving so I had let off the throttle, so it just made a ‘KLUNK’ noise and stalled the engine (and without the engine running, no hydraulic pressure) so it just dropped into neutral and coasted. After glaring bullets at my friend for a bit, I just put it in neutral, started the engine, put it back in drive, and continued driving as normal without even ever coming to a stop. Still worked fine a few years later when I sold it. So, even without this safety feature, it still might not be all that exciting. I definitely wouldn’t recommend trying it (and no way I’d try it on the highway, or with my foot down on the accelerator) though.
I did experienced it when I accidentally put my car (Pajero 2005 model) into Reverse mode when driving on a bridge going down. I got this habit of going Neutral when descending on a bridge. What happens is the car engine stop and all the warning lights turned on and I have to glide the car to the side of the road. I thought my car broke, I’m concern that I damage my transmission or what. But eventually I restart the car and to may surprise, still working for now. But need to have it check with my mechanic to see if it damage something. Unfortunately for old model car they don’t have fail safe features like yours.
Hello, recently there was a issue regarding the HYUNDAI PALLISADE SUV vehicle in korea. The crash was happened in down hill. The dirver put gear in reverse to pull back her car from the parking space, and then she pressed reverse again(she thought she pressed drive button. Pallisade has button-style gear knob) and went down a hill. She heard a loud noise in car, but she ignored it. And, she kept went down the hill and used brake once to say hello to friend that was walking by. She kept down the hill, and then she noticed that the vehicle’s brake does not work anymore. Finally, her car rolled over. What I want to ask is that can you do this test with automatic vehicle which has button style gear knob?Thank you
I actually put my car in reverse one time by accident. I was driving a 1989 automatic Buick LeSabre and while going 55mph I switched gears but accidentally moved too many and ended on reverse. I quickly put it back to Drive but the accelerator wasn’t responding any more. I pulled over. Put it on park, and turned off the ignition. I was scared that I had totaled the car’s transmission. I turned it on again, set it on drive and took off. I never noticed any damage. I was lucky!
Back in 1979, while intending to coast down a long hill in neutral, I accidentally shifted a ’74 Pinto automatic into reverse. The rear wheels locked up. I think the engine shut down too. My brother and I continued our trip without incident. The next day the timing belt broke. After the timing belt replacement, the car continued to run fine until my father traded it on a Toyota.
I did this once after switching from manual to automatic and automatically went to change gears – the car got to neutral and just wouldn’t go into reverse at all, it was like there was something blocking it, that was a Nissan Note automatic. Worst thing I did was driving on the German Autobahn I was doing about 60mph in an automatic and I went to automatically change gear, put my left foot straight down on the “clutch” (which was the brake) – never seen so much smoke from the tyres before! Luckily the road was quite quiet and so I moved my foot off the brake and floored it. It’s weird how muscle memory works!
I have an e40d ford truck and accidentally put it in reverse at 35 mph. Was trying to get it to neutral to listen for bearing noise on the steering. Well the back tires locked up or tried to spin backwards not sure and it shut the truck off then it was like it was in neutral. Seems like no damage done but that was scary.
Yes, new cars have so many sensors an computers operating them, the interlock prevented the transmission from actually engaging its reverse mode. The electronic switch on the gearshift actuated the rear view camera. However, my 1998 Pontiac, accidentally did it once, actually tried to reverse the drive train, very momentarily, before I realized what had happened at about 40 mph. Quick reflexes, I guess, kept it from ripping my trans apart. That was about 5 years ago and it’s still going strong. On a manual transmission, the inertia of the car against the clutch plates would/should rip, at a minimum, your clutch or sheer the bolts on your drive shaft. (You are trying to reverse the direction of the driveshaft, against the forward momentum). I guess thats called physics.
This accidentally happened to me in an ‘88 S-10 automatic. The engine crapped out me and I was putting it in neutral, but I slipped into reverse for a second. It made a HORRIBLE rapid ratchet like cranking sound. Fortunately, it still runs with that same transmission. I’m shocked that I didn’t ruin something.
This is total bullshit. I drive a 16 year old toyota, and I did the same thing he did, once, by mistake. Stupid me accidentally shifted into neutral with an auto trans (doesn’t have a lock when you go from neutral to drive, drive to neutral) and then went to hold it down and went up instead of down. Transmission made this horrible grinding sound, and jerked backward while I was going 50 (went down to 30, then 15 really fast)
if you try this on an older car you will grind the gears and you can hear it “clunk” the whole time till the car comes to a stop and it starts reversing. the reason your car (and newer cars) didn’t/don’t do anything is because your shifter isn’t directly connected to your gearbox in your transmission its actually just a dummy box if you will with electrical components that just sends a signal to the computer in the car and the computer sends a signal to the transmission to tell it to shift gears
depends on the type of car. in some older automatics there is no safety feature and would actually engage the reverse gear. the wheels would skid and depending on speed would have an effect on the transmission. in your case there is an electronic safety that engages all the electronics except the gear itself. for manuals the reverse gear doesnt have a synchro so when you put it in reverse while going forward it will mash the teeth together and you get a grinding sound. tried on both 🙂
i was in a friends car that did this with diff results.lol it was a nice monte carlo with built motor and turbo400 trans that was going around 70mph wen the reverse lockout failed during a downshift and the rear tires chirped and bounced the rear end about a foot of the ground! he had it back in drive fast enuf to save the rear end and trany and motor but it was scary as hell for a min tho!
I did this out of curiosity when i was a teenager. I was driving a 1986 Cutlass supreme with a 231 V6 (it was wrecked and junk)… Took it out with a buddy of mine and we trashed this thing. So i got the bright idea to throw it in reverse at 55 mph… BAM.. whole front end jerk with a pleasent tire squeal, broke the drive shaft, broke the motor and trans mounts, jerked one of the rear struts out, broke a leaf apring mount and continued to coast down the highway.. pulled it off to the shoulder, took the plates off and ditched it…. the fun days of crazy adventures hahahah…. the car was mine.. it was trashed cause some jack ass the night before side swiped every vehicle on my street in a police chase and my car was the one that stopped him hahahaha…. man good times.. i was pissed about my car back then but its funny these days.. ..
When I first turned 16, I had to do deliveries in this old crappy Chevy Astrovan. The transmission lever was so loose and sloppy, it was easy to slide past the gear you wanted. I was going down a hill, so I shifted it down into 3 out of D, then when I went to go back into D it just slid right past D and into R.. The wheels locked up and it skidded. I quickly put it back into D. It scared the crap out of me, now I think it’s quite funny looking back. haha
Well I did the same 20 odd years in a Vauxhall Carlton. It locked the rear wheels up we nearly had a scary crash. Outcome was broke something called a torque converter ! I remember it was expensive. My friend who was driving was not happy it was my car I put it in reverse but I was drunk in the passenger seat !!
In most modern computerized cars, if the car is going faster than 5 mph forward, it will simply ignore the shifter going into reverse. It’s a solenoid that shuts off its ability to engage the reverse gear–Reverse Inhibit Circuit Solenoid. Basically, if there isn’t current going through that component, which only happens when the computer sends current to it, it won’t work, and the computer only sends that current when the vehicle is going less than 5 mph (this speed may vary in some car, but the error code reads 5 for the explanation).
Oh the memories! I killed my dad’s 1983. Ford Escort When I was 15 years old. Doing neutral to Drive Drops At Full Throttle. Then Drive To Reverse At Full Throttle. Then a Horrible Noise Happened! Then Red Fluid Pouring From Under Car. This was in 1987. My Dad Has Long Forgiven Me. I’m now 45. But at the time I was in a lot of trouble!!! Thanks for sharing your article. Brought Back a Flood of memories. 😄
I would guess this is a electronically controlled auto. New cars have a ton of protection and safeties in place. Trust me, in an old auto it JACKS the transmission and kills the engine. My brother drove a stick and borrowed my dads 1979 toyota pickup with an auto. At about 40mph he tried to shift it thinking he was in his car. The truck violently shuttered and pulsed, the tires chirped and we almost lost control. That truck was never the same after that. We never told my dad………………
I can share from experience that in my mom’s 1998 Ford Taurus, i accidentally put the car in reverse while going 10-15 mph. My intention was to put it in neutral, for that car the gear shifter was located next to the steering wheel. The car cutoff on me and would not start back up again right away. I had to sit for a few minutes, with the car off, before starting it again. After sometime, the car started up with no problems. So I can say with an older vehicle, at a lower speed, it can mess with the transmission.
I want to see you replicate this test except try one different thing. Put it into reverse and tap the gas. If your coasting then your torque converter isn’t going to be locked up so therefore it’s as if the clutch is in. If you tap the gas, which would require the torque converter to engage, I think you will find very different results.
I owned a 2010 VW CC, and had 60 MPH on a speedometer, and for some reasons I just put gear on P (parking), don’t know why, maybe I’m silly, but I heard weird noise coming from my transmission and I put in D (drive) mode right away, thank God nothing happened. But I didn’t do that on purpose, so don’t judge me that I’m stupid, I don’t know why my hands went on shift knob and I put it in P. But in this article, car had absolutely no reaction to that, due to the new technology, which makes it really safe. Claps to this man for trying it tho, I would never do it on purpose.
The reason why nothing happened in a automatic is because every automatic has a protection against it, while it will say you’re in reverse but you really would be in neutral. With Manual cars most modern ones from around 2005 upwards have protection against it too but I do believe but an older manual car from the 1980’s would blow out the transmission. A bit like putting a car from 6th gear to 1st while travelling at 70mph, you rpm will go right up, cause your car to skid as the sudden change in speed before it blows out your transmission, maybe depending on the car it wont blow out but you would loose control and more than likely to skid and loose control (again but that would be with older car before the safety measure was implemented).
The 2010 xrt xlt 5.4v8 when you do that at anything more then 10km it shuts the truck off and you roll I’ve don’t it by accident I didn’t stop on gravel and assumed it would be fine but it just shuts off the the truck. My other truck is a manul and it doesn’t so that it grinds gears at anything more then walking speed
The newer cars have an electronic sensor that prevents the transmission from actually going into reverse when forward motion is detected. I don’t know if it has a minimum speed threshhold. But in an older car (pre-2000), you can expect your transmission to screech out “You suck!” just before barfing its guts out on the pavement
In the military we have a vehicle used for finding IEDs (Bombs) called the Husky and the steering wheel could be popped off if you pulled up on it . well 13 months in Iraq I got bored of the long daily 15 hour missions driving at 5mph (12kmph?) so I would pop it off and see if I could put it back on without going off the road down the cliff into the river. Could you take your steering wheel off while driving and see what happens in a normal car?
I tried putting my short piped dual exhaust Dodge Durango in nutrel to rev bomb a parking garage one time when a little too fast when shifting accidentally put it in reverse and stepped on the gas…..let’s just say I did a peel out instead of a rev bomb luckily I was going 10mph so no damage to wheels transmission or anything
Many new cars uses digital shift for automatic transmissions. So, in other words, the shifter is not coupled to the transmission. The computer does all the controls of shifting. This is most prevalent in CVTs. Oh, I still don’t understand why the need to add more speed to the transmission (i.e. 5 speed to 10 speed for automatics) since CVTs are almost exactly that.
Did this in a 1992 Lincoln Town car in 2014: car went into neutral until it rolled to full stop, then the shift takes place….. same thing happens when throwing car into drive while moving in reverse. The shift would take place until all momentum was lost. So Ford apparently planned for this a loong time ago.
Actually after giving this some thought, you should try this on ice. Just wait until there’s a good deal of solid ice/packed snow and try it on a level area. Perhaps an empty parking lot. My experiences have been that you’ve much more control and far more effective than braking on ice, actually using brakes on ice unless you’re doing a 180 as you’re traveling down the road is useless and dangerous. It’s been decades since I’ve driven in such a manner. Not so young nor “bulletproof” these days. But I certainly enjoy getting the blood up, having a hot date certainly adds too it…😎
If there is the possibility let the car roll out till it stand still and look what you can do next I think the transmission is prepared to go backwards but has no contact (i don’t know how all the parts are named in english sorry). So when u stand still after rolling out i’m sure you can drive backwards just as nothing happened. I have a stickshift in my 2011 Ford Focus and it is hard to go back in 1st gear whyle driving 20km/h, i think the modern stickshifts do not allow to go in R while driving faster then a specific speed, but i’m not gonna test it 😆. But i think that was the point of all the request to this questions, an automatic don’t care what you do, driving forward with the rewersegear is like standing by a trafficlight and press the break, there will nothing happen.
this one definitely varies from Vehicles to vehicle. I used to have a 95 Mustang 5.0 liter V8. one day I was heading to tech school I was doing about 90 miles per hour and I somehow managed to put the car in reverse it locked up the rear wheels and sent me into a violent spin inches from the curb and utility poles I ended up stopping facing the opposite way and I just backed into the school’s parking lot as if nothing happened.
for real though, this is not good for your car. my buddy bought an ’04 WRX STI and we didn’t know that the cable for the reverse safety latch was removed. we figured it out while doing 80 on the freeway. he went to shift into 6th and ended up shifting into reverse by accident. by the time we got back into town, his reverse gear was 100% gone. imagine dropping $13,000 on a car the cant back up. he just got it out of the shop and it cost close to $1,500-$2,000 to fix it. not worth trying this
This could have been really dangerous to try in an open road. I thought the car would instantly stop as if you slammed on the break while going 80km/h and then reverse. If it did you would have flew out the wind shield, and the drivers behind you wouldn’t have enough time to react if they were close enough and end up crashing into you.
In a 2004 Civic EX, the car won’t let you. You go from drive, to neutral, and then it just locks before reverse. Also, why does VTEC start at 3000 RPM. I’ll be sitting at a red light, then I’ll go and it picks up slowly. Once 3000 comes around (and you apply a little more pressure to the pedal) it just lurches forward. You can feel it, I doubt it is because you enter the higher power range.
This test is obviously FAKE. Not the actual test, because he did put it in reverse, but the way he represented. He must have known before what will exactly happen, otherwise he is just really brave, or plain stupid to test it out at a busy road in front of other cars at that speed. Btw it would go down very differently in a manual.
Automatic transmissions are designed with a failsafe incase of this emergency, on this event it noticed your speed and also noticed your in reverse, the click in your cabin was the relay engaging causing your car to cut the power to the transmission using the clutch in the automatic transmission. Basically your just in neutral, if you were to give it gas it would just Rev and nothing would happen. In a manual transmission your wheels would lock up it would grind your gears so hard and then you would crash.
I tried shifting into neutral to save gas while going downhill. Accidentally went into reverse, instant stop (tires skid a little), engine shut off, have to shift into park, turn the car off, turn it back on, in the middle of an intersection lol. Was a chevy tahoe with a non-stock engine, so they probably didn’t do it right where it doesn’t let you shift into reverse. Or I guess that’d be the transmission. Trasnmission has been redone on it too prior to that, so maybe they didn’t do that right. The tahoe was almost old enough to legally be a collector.
I accidentally did that a few years back in a 2006 cobalt I had. I had put my car in neutral and thinking I had it in 1 or 2 I thought I was putting it back in drive when I really put it in reverse. My car died, I thought I was out of gas but then after a couple minutes I started my car back up and it was fine
Last week when I went for a drive to do a drift but didn’t do it and then on the highway there was a race then lost it twice and then got off the highway for 5 minutes and then accidentally put it in reverse and then back in drive. Then a few seconds the engine stopped working then started working again
I had a friend that had a Gremlin, one day before school we were haulin’ down a beach road and he slams it to either park or reverse, not sure which, and the next thing we know we hear this god awful noise and start to slow down, someone noticed that behind us, there was a massive metal fixture in the road! Yep, the transmission actually fell out!
Lmao I just put this to the test the other day on my 2007 DTS but not intentionally! I was driving with a friend and somehow we got onto the topic of putting the car in neutral while driving, he didn’t believe me that you could do that. Of course I had to show him and when I popped it up to neutral it went right past it and into reverse! Other than an initial thud it didn’t do anything although i was very quick to go back down to drive once I realized what happened. Made sure to check and see that it still went through all the gears and it still drives and shifts like it should so I’m leaning to there being some type of fail safe mechanism that prevents major damage if such thing should occur, but idk know all I know is my transmission didn’t blow up thankfully! Lmao
Ive done this in my 99 jeep xj auto accidentally doing about 30mph for a split second. It made a nice clunk, chirped tires, and stalled. Its my first automatic and my throttle position sensor was acting up and I meant to go to neutral. This happened around 170k miles on vehicle and now has 220k and still going strong. “Oooops”
That’s definitely not what happens in a 96 Chevy Blazer. I did that once by accident back in the day day. I was going to shift from Drive to Over Drive and there was quite a bit of resistance, then when it finally did shift it jumped all the way to R which was a lot of fun. I was doing about 50 and the rear wheels immediately started powering backwards at full power, screeching horrendously of course, fish tailed about, then the whole truck seized up then released as though in neutral and shut completely off… all within about 15 seconds of terror and then continued rolling at about 40mph. Coasted into a parking a lot and then put it in park and it started back up all as normal. In the future when doing these articles I’d recommend not doing them on a trafficked road with other motorists around haha.
Above a certain speed (like 5 mph) most modern cars will block the reverse position, even with manual transmission. The older ones… It will probably grind terribly the gears and as it tries to engage it will try to brake your car and at the same time there will be some force being applied to the engine, so that will be harmful too. But mostly it will be a bad experience, it’s dangerous, and it will ruin at least your transmission. It’s good that modern cars have safety features against it.
This thing happen on me, just tonight. It was an accidental shift. I was doing a manual mode/ manual downshifting. I was on d3 at an uphill, then i decided to go back to d or drive. Then suddenly i heard a screech like tires rolling fast? Then i saw the rpm goes up quickly almost hit the red. And i saw my reverse cam shows up and i saw my gear was on R. Then immediately shift it back to drive. Thank God nothing bad happened, because some one was tailgating me. Who wants me to go speeding over a speed limit. Lol. My car just continued driving forward, didnt stop or reversed. I knew it was my bad i over shift, but i really just made one shift towards D. I dont know how it reaches R. I drove a honda civic 2010. Now i know my car is reliable hahahah. I will be more careful next time. I dont want to mess up with my transmission again. Lol
I did this on accident to my 2023 Corolla le because I tried to rev the car but I put it on reverse on accident and when I pressed the gas the hat no longer wanted to drive and whenever I put the car back to (drive) my car started overheating and it was because I blew the intercooler and all the coolant was drained out of the car which caused my car to overheat 😢😅 but now I gotta pay $1300 to fix it 😭😭