ShoremNJ

I was selet shifting my7 speed auto trans when I accidentally pushed up into neutral when upshifting, I pulled it back into drive and it would not shift up or down no matter what i did. I pulled over and went to neutral and when I tried going back into gear it stayed in neutral. I figured I broke the tranny.....ugh!
I then turned off the car and removed the key waited a second to reboot the computer and it was back to normal..whew!

angeloxnet

pushed up into neutral? didnt think u could do such a thing

jrct9454

Once you've selected neutral at speed, the car needs to be stopped and restarted before the trans will allow you to get back into gear - exactly what you experienced. This is designed to protect the transmission from possible damage when you try to reselect a gear at speed from neutral - a relatively new feature, by the way.

oblu

Wow. What a wonderful feature for those of us with kids .... kind of like how there aren't any child locks on the rear doors. Hasn't happened in this car, but in others my wife has accidently knocked into neutral when she's turned around to deal with the kid. I'm sure they had my family's safety in mind when they decided instead of risk potential damage to the transmission, they'll make me pull off the freeway or stop on the side of the road and reboot the car. How f'ing wonderful.

Merc is really starting to **** me off with trying to be overly clever but not pay attention to real life. This is my first one, and so far I'm not all that impressed.

AsianML

I'm sure merging onto the shoulder and waiting to restart the car is much safer than sitting on the side of the highway for hours to wait for a tow truck to come and pick up the car after the transmission has been ruined.

RLE

<<Once you've selected neutral at speed, the car needs to be stopped and restarted before the trans will allow you to get back into gear - exactly what you experienced. This is designed to protect the transmission from possible damage when you try to reselect a gear at speed from neutral - a relatively new feature, by the way.>>

My '01 C320's five speed auto worked this way also. I stupidly moved it into neutral at 70mph or so and suddenly I had a box full of neutrals. I had enough speed to move all the way to the right and take an exit. A reboot restored it to normal. Naturally you would not pull the key out (locks the steering column) without being at a full stop.

oblu

Because the # of times my wife's elbow has knocked the selector into N and me putting it back in Drive with other transmissions has cause the transmission to fail is so frequent? Out of the at least five times I can recall the number of transmission failures, even after one particular car reached over 100k miles, was exactly 0.

If the transmission is so fragile, build in a mechanical fail safe that doesn't impact the driver.

oblu

I can see that being a problem if I were on 520 or a similar bridge with no shoulder.

"Oh, wait everybody! I have to coast to a stop blocking one of the two lanes of the bridge so I can reboot my car; because that's what Merc engineers thought was a good design idea."

Pffft. Incredibly intelligent design.

norcal5

Learn another new thing that is not in the brick. Thanks.

RLE

<<I can see that being a problem if I were on 520 or a similar bridge with no shoulder. "Oh, wait everybody! I have to coast to a stop blocking one of the two lanes of the bridge so I can reboot my car; because that's what Merc engineers thought was a good design idea.>>

Stopping on the shoulder of the Interstate is illegal and dangerous. I can see it now. WSP pulls up behind. "Wotsa problem?" Oh, I was screwing around and temporarily killed my car. "License, registration and proof of insurance, please." "Sign right there, sir."

And another thing, I gotta ask, what's going on in your car with your wife knocking the shifter into neutral so much? Hmmm?

ShoremNJ

Well I tested the theory stated above as the failsafe and it is totally bogus. At speed I shifted into neutral and I can just go back into drive no problem. Repeated several times now. I think the original propblem I stated was upshifting and slipping into neutral sent two commands to the computer and it couldn't handle it so it bogged down.

acr2001

That's funny. The ammount of total on these forums never ceases to surprise me. Someone should post a thread about how these cars have a space flight mode, just drive off a cliff and it activates. I wouldn't be surprised if someone tries it.

This idea that the car needs to be fully stopped, and turned off before being put back into gear is one of the most stupid dangerous and ridiculous things that I have ever heard. I used to shift in and out of neutral all the time in my old car which was a 1993 Saturn with over 100k on the clock!! NO ISSUES.

jstaneff

Is it possible that the "upshift" through neutral actually touched on Reverse? If so, then that might be what caused the stoppage.

Hmm. No, I think I'll pass on trying it. (And on the space flight mode!)

theraj2

This is not related to the post... but your car looks really hot! it looks like the eyebrow light is chrome! keep up the good work in making it shine!

oblu

:rofl:

Well it sure got me all worked up!

schvamf

heh, reminds me of those old email messages... "If Microsoft made cars..." LOL!

mac911

What's crazy is that in Formula 1 Microsoft is the partner with McLaren in making the electronic control unit for all cars in the entire field this year. The Mclaren part is fine, but Microsoft??? Scary stuff! ha-ha.

jstaneff

<<What's crazy is that in Formula 1 Microsoft is the partner with McLaren in making the electronic control unit for all cars in the entire field this year. The Mclaren part is fine, but Microsoft??? Scary stuff! ha-ha.>>

Oh no! It's Clippy!!

oblu

offtopic : the McLaren part is fine?!? If I were another team there's no way I'd have agreed to let McLaren supply ecu's. They got cheating last year (like all teams do) so I'd question whether they made all other ecus a 1/10th a sec slower than their own.

I'm really surprised the teams didn't throw up a bigger fuss about this one.

ShoremNJ

The dealer confirmed that tow many signals were sent to the computer and it needed to be rebooted. Also happened to my associate with his Jaguar.

Untertürkheim

Having no child locks is actually a safety feature, so that passengers can escape in case of an accident or exit the car when they need to in any emergency. Child locks turn vehicles into instant coffins.

oblu

Uh ... cause a toddler is going to know how to unbuckle their 5pt harness, get out of their car seat, open their own door and climb out in the event of an accident?

Most commonly, if they're not hurt they just sit there and cry because they're shaken up and scared.

If they can do those things, then they're also old enough to learn not to open a car door while it's in motion, thus negating the need for the child locks.

I'm guessing you don't have kids?