Selecting reverse gear at speed

[fatandwheezing]

T5 has 6 gears, dull commuter-mobile (C5) only has 5. Trouble is, reverse is in the position 6th should be (and is in the Volvo), and I am fully expecting to absent mindedly forget the pitiful acceleration, and deafening rattle and stick it from 5th to reverse.

So, my question is, is there an inbuilt lockout to stop you doing this at speed and destroying everything? I'm sure I got it in reverse once, then remembered before I released the clutch, but may be going a bit mad.

[Parabola]

I think a journalist did this to a Jaguar XJ220 at it's launch day. It didn't end well..

That anecdotal story probably isn't vey useful to you though!

[iva cosworth]

There would be an horrific crunching noise and you'll probably destroy reverse gear.

[Butter Face]

Tried it once, you'll know within a split second of tying it that you've cocked it up.

Pretty sure that reverse won't actually engage whilst you're moving forward under load, you'd porbabky shear a load of teeth off your gear and if imagine you'd mulch it pretty bad but thats it.

[SWH]

Don't lift the collar/push the stick down... The reverse gate is there for a reason.

Many moons ago one of the gearboxes I had in a Marina would allow reverse to be attempted whenever you fancied it... and yes that was the end of the gearbox, lots of grinding, go in you bd, snick, oh bugger, a large bang, momentary locked rear wheels, then all sorts of mechanically painful clattering, almost drowned out my swearing too.

Best avoided in my experience

[mackie1]

I think quite a few modern gearboxes lock reverse out so such a thing would be impossible.
Give it a whirl hand report back

[MintSprint]

Assuming it's got synchro on reverse gear, the synchro would baulk it. You'd just get the same sort of graunching noise that you get if you try to engage a gear without depressing the clutch. You'd think 'fk, that was stupid of me', and carry on.

[P I Staker]

The reverse lock wont let you go from 5th to reverse with out returning to neutral first.

Edited by P I Staker on Saturday 8th November 21:16

[wst]

SWH said:

Don't lift the collar/push the stick down...

Not sure of the era of this T5 but the Mitsubishi Carisma based era of S40/V40 manuals don't have a lift up collar in my experience (albeit just in the 1.8).

Caught my Dad trying to get into 6th before but I've gone "what the fk are you doing?!" before he managed it.

Never done it myself, I've only driven 5 speeds so far, alas.

[kambites]

Most cars with reverse where 6th should be wont let you go from 5th to reverse straight across the gate.

Edited by kambites on Saturday 8th November 22:19

[addz86]

Didn't the myth hunters try and engage reverse whilst going forwards? They weren't strong enough to force it into gear but can't remember if it damaged anything

[fatandwheezing]

No reverse lift or push collar on the Volvo or the citroen. After reading these responses, I am now 100% confident!

[Jonwm]

There was a motoring program on sky 1 a few years back that tried it in a rover 420, it wouldn't let them do it, no matter how hard they tried

[FakeConcern]

A friend of mine has a 6 speed gear box & kept trying to select 6th when he drove my 5 speed car. Made an awful crunching sound each time. I wasn't very happy, but didn't seem to do any harm.

[Mave]

P I Staker said:

The reverse lock wont let you go from 5th to 6th with out returning to neutral first.

Isn't it in neutral as soon as you take it out of 5th?

[Morningside]

I hit reverse at about 60 ish on my old Rover SD1 V8 auto by mistake. Cue lots of smoke and it stalled. Flicked it into neutral and re-start. No harm done.

[Nickyboy]

Mythbusters tried this

Couldn't physically engage reverse in a manual tho there was plenty of grinding and in an auto it selected reverse easily but never engaged

[P I Staker]

Mave said:

P I Staker said:

The reverse lock wont let you go from 5th to 6th with out returning to neutral first.

Isn't it in neutral as soon as you take it out of 5th?

Ok, returning the gearstick to centre then.

What I meant to say was reverse anyway.

[Bodo]

Parabola said:

I think a journalist did this to a Jaguar XJ220 at it's launch day. It didn't end well..

That anecdotal story probably isn't vey useful to you though!

I remember that, but it was not reverse. On the press event at Salzburgring, the Guardian journalist wanted to shift up to third after a corner ('give it the gun'), but actually shifted down to first and gave full throttle. bang.

[M4cruiser]

Mave said:

P I Staker said:

The reverse lock wont let you go from 5th to 6th with out returning to neutral first.

Isn't it in neutral as soon as you take it out of 5th?

Mr P.I.S taker is correct. On our 5-speed you can't go straight back from 5th to reverse without moving the lever left along neutral into at least between 3rd and 4th.

I think there is more of a problem with the 6-speed Mini which does allow you to select reverse (I've seen it done), it's normally done by someone more used to the older 5-speed Mini. The reverse "lock" (left and forward) is just a stronger spring, but easily overcome. On the plus side this happened at lower speed than an attempted 5th to 6th would occur.