what happens when you throw an automatic car into park while still moving foward?

[Zucchini]

Just wondering if there's any permanent damage. Its happened to a friend who had a stupid passenger. Weird noises were heard, but thats about it.

 

[8ball]

Could cause serious transmission damage that may be unnoticable at first. Were you the passenger or driver?

 

[Dameon]

Yep... if he has to have a tranny job in the next 3-6 months... I'd call the passanger and request a "donation"... or at least make him drive you over there to pick it up.

 

[Ulfwald]

Look for damage to the parking pin, as well as the gears. Go have it inspected, and then if there is any damage, bill the idiot who did this.

 

[purplehayes]

I'd call a transmission shop to see what a professional opinion is. I'm sure there was damage done. Anytime you hear 'noises' from your transmission, you're hearing bad news.

Just my .02

PH

 

[Zucchini]

Sadly i was not there to to witness the spectical first hand My friend told me that his passenger did this. He was already braking at the time, but he did hear strange noises. No sign of damage since i think, i'll have to ask him for more detail. I was just wondering if anyone knew exactly what happens when park is engaged. My guess is that it locks the wheels and disengages the wheels from the engine right? How does it lock the wheels or whatever it does??

 

[Gorgonzola]

i would think that would cause at least some damage. not quite as bad as what someone i know did. he was driving an auto and he has a habit of just tapping the gearstick as he is driving along. on this particular car the button to release the gearstick was on top. when he was travelling on a highway at about 100km/h, he accidently tapped it to hard, and the stick slide into reverse. as you can imagine that was a very costly and dangerous mistake

 

[Zucchini]

Hmm, well the passenger thought it would be funny to shove the automatic into drive 2(gear 2 i guess) to give the driver a surprise I guess the braking at the time unlocked the thing and it easily slid past 2 and R to P

I had a 89 camero a couple years back in which i threw the stick into reverse while moving a little faster then 5mph The wheels just lock, engine dies.. slid to a stop. Started up again just fine.. hated that car so i decided it was time to try it

 

[PG]

Park and neutral are almost the same, but there is a parking pawl that holds the car from moving when in Park. This parking pawl is basically a pin that holds the car from moving and it can be broken, meaning that the car will roll when in Park, just as in Neutral. But it might operate fine otherwise. Just be careful. And yes, broken parts in your transmission would be a very bad thing. Broken parts can move around and damage other parts.

 

[Pretender]

/me takes notes
switching to park while driving - bad
/me puts away newbie notepad

 

[Zucchini]

Where is this parking prowl located? In the transmission?

 

[Sacotool]

It depends on how fast he was going. If your moving along at 40+ miles per hour, if you tried to engage park, most likely you'd hear some awful clashing noises, but I doubt the transmission would engage park at that speed. One time I accidentally popped my parents car into park at about 2 miles per hour, the car just stopped instantly and bounced up and down a couple of times hehe.

With front wheel drive cars, if you put it in reverse while going foward, you'll probably just stall the engine, no harm done; that's what the stall out safety feature is for. As for rear wheel drive, my friend had an old beater Ford Fairmont which he used to drop into reverse at 15 mph or so going foward and the rear tire would peel out going backwards

 

[Soybomb]

ulfwald said exactly what I was thinking. Make the idiot pay for the inspection too

 

[XeonTux]

It a much better gag to pull up the parking brake when someones driving, best around a turn on snow or a wet road

Ah, the stupid things we used to do when we were young!

 

[Tominator]

It's a parking 'pawl.' I'm not sure that's what it's called in today's automobiles. In the rear wheel drive days, it would strip the pawl. Everything would work afterwards except the car would roll in park like it was in neutral.

 

[monckywrench]

What PG said, plus the sudden stoppage of the tranny parts halted by engaging the pawl versus the parts that were still moving at engine rpm may have munched gears/clutch packs/bearings. As far as I'm concerned the person who did it owes the victim the $$ for a teardown and rebuild. The only way to fully access auto trans guts is a teardown. Noise = damage.

 

[Zucchini]

Hmm, well are there any mechanics out there that know exactly what would happen? Its a honda civic 98, hard to convince the guy to have it looked at since it runs fine so far

 

[Gorgonzola]

XeonTux, last time i saw someone pull the park break as a joke, the persons car ended up sliding off the road and crashing through my grandma's concrete front fence. very messy