Rep Power: 0

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?

 
Rep Power: 308

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

 
Rep Power: 0

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.

 
Rep Power: 308

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

 
Rep Power: 0

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

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

 
Rep Power: 308

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

 
Rep Power: 0

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.