[rxpaul]

While shifting down, i often shift from 5th to 3rd or even 2nd.
After recently reading a thread on team-bhp about 'revving hard while driving', i have been (at times) revving my Octavia to 2000/ 3000 on 2nd and directly slotting it to 4th or 5th. It is faster and sort of smoother and you kind of rocket ahead of others. Ofcourse it would be faster if you revv it on every gear, but where is the road ?

I shift 1-2-3-4- ONLY on crowded roads.

[KiloAlpha]

Originally Posted by anilisanil

Yesterday night while driving back home, I thought I was in fifth gear (i am not too sure now) and thought I should downshift to third gear. So when I downshifted, I accidentally engaged first gear

There was a huge jerk and a high pitch screetch, I immediately realized my error disengaged the clutch slotted back to second and drove off. Now please don't ask me how did I manage to be so foolish :(

Please help me is there anyway I could check if I damaged any mechanicals?

Firstly, as pointed out by others - there is very little chance of damage to mechanicals. Chill dude!

One way in which we could prevent accidental shifting like this is to position our palm on the gear lever correctly. I learned it from a Brit AA booklet published 1970.

The gear lever must be in the hollow of your palm while shifting. If you are trying to shift into 2nd or 1st, the palm should face towards the passenger. While shifting into 3rd or 4th, your palm should face downwards. While shifting into 5th, your palm should face towards your thigh.

If I can find that booklet, I will scan it and post it.

[sudev]

If any problem was to arise it would have at the time. Most likely issue would have been valve damage. If the engine continues to purrrrrr then this is not an issue. If there is roughness in idling then get it checked.

Gear box abuse would have shown up a continuous grinding sort of noise.

[rohan_iitr]

Originally Posted by KiloAlpha

The gear lever must be in the hollow of your palm while shifting. If you are trying to shift into 2nd or 1st, the palm should face towards the passenger. While shifting into 3rd or 4th, your palm should face downwards. While shifting into 5th, your palm should face towards your thigh.

+1. My driving instructor taught me the same thing when I learnt driving in a Maruti 800.

My i10 just wouldn't engage the 1st gear unless the speed is really really slow. I wonder how the other cars behave.

Rohan

[anilisanil]

Originally Posted by mjothi

same as the above posts. Dont worry for such things. The engines are manufactured to handle all these in such situations.

So, did you like the sudden Vrrrrooom !!!

Mine is a Diesel so it made an altogether different noise. It scared the living daylights off the biker beside me, though!

Originally Posted by ssh1979

You haven't mentioned the speed at which you did this; I'm just assuming here that it's not some insane speed.

Honestly, I was not looking at the dash then, but it could not be more than 40.

Originally Posted by pjbiju

Anil do you remember what your speed was while downshifting. I guess it would not have been too high since you wanted to downshift to 3rd anyway.

Only if you were outside of the max speed limit of the 1st gear, some damage might have happened. But even then since these things are designed with a good measure of factor of safety thrown in, it should be quite ok.

I think I was doing where abouts of 40 and wheels locked and skidded for a brief moment and there were an orchestra of sounds!!

Originally Posted by SPIKE ARRESTOR

No damage if everything is working normally after that. In fact while developing transmissions, manufacturers have dedicated tests to simulate such behavior. Your GB too must have passed it during the design / development stage.

Spike

I understand that, hopefully everything should be ok as the vehicle did not complain nor did it seem any different from before, but it was one VIOLENT jerk!! As if someone rear ended me. Really felt bad for my car :(

Originally Posted by _raVan_

Do you remember the RPM at which you were in 3rd gear or when you downshifted to 1st? If it was less than the red mark, you need not worry. Over-revving the engine can have a disastrous effect, but since you were on 3rd, the chances are very less of overrevving when you jump to 1st.

Well there is no chance of over revving because Figo has electronic rev limiter to prevent damage!

Originally Posted by sudev

If any problem was to arise it would have at the time. Most likely issue would have been valve damage. If the engine continues to purrrrrr then this is not an issue. If there is roughness in idling then get it checked.

Gear box abuse would have shown up a continuous grinding sort of noise.

No there is nothing deviant apparent as of now. Should I anyway go and get it checked? I am to go on a 2K km drive next week and so I am a bit concerned.

[mayankjha1806]

Originally Posted by rohan_iitr

My i10 just wouldn't engage the 1st gear unless the speed is really really slow. I wonder how the other cars behave.

Good point, i guess when the speed is really high and its not safe to move to first gear the car kind of does not allow you to do that (Just to keep itself safe). Not sure if there is any specific feature in the car that prevents this but i have surely noticed this in few occasions and as well as in my Baleno.

So i guess the moral of the story is, if you successfully did change to first gear (As the car allowed you to do that) its safe, apart from the sudden jerk and your body getting thrown forward i guess there is nothing that could have happened to the car.

[revintup]

Originally Posted by DevilsCry

I am confused. I have shifted down from 5th to 2nd or 1st gear many times due to traffic. The car never complains about it.

Are some guys suggesting here that I should shift from 5th to 3rd then to 2nd/1st if I came down from 90kph to 15kph?

There are speeds at which each gear is comfortable.It is very much possible and okay to shift from 5th to 2nd provided that you brake the vehicle to slower speeds.

[BheemBoy]

What happens if someone slots into Reverse while on the move?
Is it possible?

[KiloAlpha]

Originally Posted by BheemBoy

What happens if someone slots into Reverse while on the move?
Is it possible?

I don't think so. There are mechanisms to prevent it, and they are standard on all manual gear boxes (I think).

Try it if you want - I did, on several different cars The gearbox simply refuses to let you shift into reverse. It will protest very loudly!

[anilisanil]

Originally Posted by BheemBoy

What happens if someone slots into Reverse while on the move?
Is it possible?

No, it is not possible. To change to reverse, the car should be at rest (0 kmph) completely.

[honeybee]

I think it would damage the gearbox, besides it being near impossible. Synchromesh usually only happens with forward gears. So while shifting from fifth to third or second might be possible on the fly, shifting into reverse while going forward should be impossible.

[navan49]

It is common with the city drivers downshifting with jumping of a gears. Most of the time the car tolerates but not sure all the time your your gear will resist and not break. So try to practice one ny one in faster speed.

[pranavt]

Originally Posted by anilisanil

Well there is no chance of over revving because Figo has electronic rev limiter to prevent damage!

I'm sure it doesn't have a mechanical rev limiter though.

If the engine is running fine and as good as before, then nothing to worry about.

Something like this usually ends up destroying a few valves due to valve float. Consider yourself lucky.

[mayankjha1806]

Originally Posted by BheemBoy

What happens if someone slots into Reverse while on the move?
Is it possible?

There are two methods by which prevents something like this happening, first in a 5 gear cars the reverse is always on extreme right Down (In some cases its Up), also on some five geared cars there is a special pull bar to be pulled for engaging reverse.

In six forward geared cars like Laura, Altis etc there is always some special mechanism to prevent from this to happen. Like in Laura you have to press the shift down, and Altis there is a separate notch to be pulled up.

In case none of these exist, try slotting a reverse gear when your car is moving forward under speeds 5-10 in first gear, it just refuses to engage.

[anky]

Like I said before look syncromesh gearbox then u will know what I mean . All modern cars have one to prevent incorrect shifting.