chocoboae

Brand new 2002 Protege ES.
Pulling out of my garage onto the street, I shifted from reverse
to what I thought was Drive, but was really neutral. I throttled
up and found it strange that I wasn't moving at all, then noticed
that I was in Neutral. I must have been at about 4300 RPM, I shifted
into Drive without letting off the throttle, or thinking, but surprisingly
the shift was smooth. Now, my friend tells me he did the exact same thing
in an older model auto Camry. When he did this, the drive caught on really
rough, with a big "CLUNK", and the wheels spun out from under him.
I was relieved to find that my Protege didn't jolt or anything when I did
that, but I was also surprised. Can anyone explain why this happened?

Farsyde

i think auto's have the equivalent of synchro's that lower the rev's to match for optimal gear change. Boy that's a mouth full

chocoboae

Cool, I didn't know that.
So I guess what you're saying is that it doesn't matter how high
I rev, I shouldn't be able to damage the tranny.

Sir Nuke

considering how an automatic tranny works....I am surprised that yours didn't do the same thing your friends did....what I am even more surprised at is WHATEVER posessed you to keep the engine revs up to 4300 and drop it in gear? geeeeeeeeeeeeez.

Farsyde

no that doesnt mean you cant harm the tranny-it just means that the synchro's bite the bullet first-but the tranny most definately will be damaged. Did ya smell a burnt toast scent-thats your clutch. Also if ya see a pool of tranny fluid under the car you've been doin somethin wrong.

The moral of the story-always put it in gear when the revs are down at idle, or you've matched the gear speed (which you shouldnt really be doin in an auto anyway)

chocoboae

LOL, good advice, I'll keep that in mind...
It was a one time deal, I was careful not to do it again afterwards. Just like that time I drove around i jjwith the parking break on. Thx for the info guys.

Maxx Mazda

I work at a Chevy dealership, and on the new Malibus, it is impossible to neutral drop the car. It is rev-limited to 3500 RPM when you're not in gear, and if you rev it up and drop it into gear, the engine will alternate the cylinders it fires on. (It sounds like a Diesel engine for about 5 seconds) then it will return to normal once the car has started moving. This in effect prevents the car from damaging it self. Pretty smart idea, but if you're trying to do a burnout in the wash bay, it's a little inconvenient.

JDMstuff

Most newer cars prevent you from neutral dropping in an auto. I've tried this with many rental cars. My friends used to do it in their cars and have wound up replacing flywheels as the teeth broke off. Since your car is newer, it would have this safety feature to prevent severe damage.

ibluevirus

inside the torqe converter there are three main components. The pump, turbine, and the stator. The pump is driven by the engine/flywheel. the pump drives the turbine, the turbine drives the tranny. There is NO physical contact between the pump and the turbine. The turbin is LIQUID driven. Tranny fluid travels from the center, into the pump, towards outside, into turbine, back to center, towards stator, startor back to pump. The reason for the stator is because the pump and turbine spins in different direction and the stator needs to be there to reverse the direction of the tranny fluid so it won't "slow" down the pump.

with all that said. the reason your wheels didn't spin should be (I don't own a auto protege) because the turbine requires more AND slower initial power input to get going. Therefore, the turbine was not able to transfer all the power from the pump to the tranny.

Also, this is why it's BAD to drop from N to D. Imagine this. The pump has all these fluid to drive (high RPM). Soonest you drop it to D, they have no where to go, or going too slow. Since it's liquid, so it's not so bad, but you can see why long run is BAD.

Hope this helps!

Farsyde

this is why I need a manual in my car. i want to be attached to the car and feel like Im telling it what to do. Alas the 'rents had to cosign the car and wouldn't do it w/o an auto.

nightowl

hehe ive done that, the engine is actualy powerfull enough to drag the back wheels.....on my parents 98 POS tercel its a diff story...can't even move the car while the parking break is on