prr

As I was driving to work yesterday, I slammed on the brakes hard when a group of cars with a green light that I was approaching, didn’t get moving as soon as I was expecting them to. It was a hard enough brake, to send my laptop (in a Targus case) from the front passenger seat, onto the floor.


When traffic started to move, I pressed the accelerator and nothing happened. I looked onto the display, and saw that I was now in neutral gear. I shifted into fourth gear (drive gear) and off I went.

Believe me, I paid attention to my trans back home from work, as well as to and from work today, and the trans was able to shift up and down without a problem.


So what was this? I had never experienced this before. Was this something in the trans itself, that is set to go into neutral during a hard brake? Or is this just something that isn’t designed to happen, but it can occasionally?

CraigW

iTrader: (1)

Maybe the case popped it into N on it's trip forward.

prr

I guess so. I was just wondering if this was a feature of the transmission, how it would normally be expected to operate when I slammed on the brakes, but I guess not.

CraigW

iTrader: (1)

The shifters are built to shift to N with little effort, you could never make it happen under braking.

prr

Interesting, that just braking wouldn't have been enough.

Perhaps my laptop case nicked the hand lever as the case went forward? Who knows.

CraigW

iTrader: (1)

Very, Very likely the computer. It takes little force to pop, and that's a fair amount of mass.

prr

Great. Then that must have been it. I read guys online talking about a transmission "slipping," and with 190K on this one, I wasn't relishing paying for a rebuilt trans. Thanks.