Issues with Gearbox - lost and confused

[senatorjohn]

Hi Fran.
Anyone overhauling your gearbox will need to build it to new condition or face possible litigation later if it plays up. Many parts which are still serviceable will have to be replaced, resulting in high cost especially at Jeep dealer prices (although some parts are very reasonable). Second hand is always a risk but at the price you mentioned, the odds are much in your favour.
John

[BOBI]

so how you gunna explain crashing reverse whilst changing from 5th to reverse at speed?

[Banshee]

That is easy to do.

Going up from 5th, you pull the stick a little out of line & it won't go in. Let it back to it's center & try again, but now the gate to reverse has been opened since it went to center. Then just as you pull it across to 6th, it comes a little further & you are going into reverse instead all without realising it.

Easy. Been there, done that. Albeit without the results Fran has had.

[Big Unit]

I don't like where reverse gear is positioned right nearby 6th. Mainly when others drive the Jeep.
It should be up near first like my Wife's Corolla.

[AshiesJK]

I too have accidentally crashed reverse going from 5th to 6th at 100km/h. Sounds like I was lucky as gearbox has been ok since...

Pursuing the Consumer Guarantee is within your rights but it could be argued that the issue was operator caused. There does seem to be a pre-existing design flaw that allows reverse to be selected in this manner.

Info on ACCC Consumer Guarantees is available at: http://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/con...mer-guarantees
It would be a lengthy but very interesting legal battle!

[Fran]

No excuses here guys! I've owned the car nearly four years and never done it, in fact I've never ground the gears in this car at all, or any car for a very long time. Just a silly accident resulting from carelessness and lack of focus. I feel really bad about it and very stupid. At first I thought "wtf, why did 6th grind", almost like I'd just done a lazy gear change and effed it up rather than hitting reverse, because it's usually easy to tell when I've shifted over into the reverse "column" but ... yeah I just don't know. I don't have any excuses.

[Paul-JK]

I'm surprised there's not a mechanical lockout on reverse, especially given that it's next to 6th and clearly hitting reverse when you're looking for 6th is never going to be good, only varying degrees of bad.

All of the manuals I've driven (and we're going back to the 90's here as as I've been an auto convert for the last few years and was riding motorbikes before that) had either a collar that you had to lift to get into reverse, or you had to push the gearstick down to engage reverse (with an action of pushing down and then pulling the gearstick towards you to engage the gear). Neither of these could really be done by accident.

By the sounds of it the Wrangler box does have a lockout, but it automatically releases if you go into N first. That sounds like a bit of a design flaw to me, and someone not really thinking through the design. Yes, I know, you should take care in what you're doing and understand the machine you're using etc etc and in that case it'll work perfectly but mistakes can happen. Going into N is a natural thing to do if you've missed a gear gate. If doing that then unlocks the reverse gear which just happens to be next to 6th then I'm surprised we don't hear of this more often.

Seems a little strange in this day and age where everything is done to protect you and/or the vehicle from doing the wrong thing. We've got ABS brakes, traction control, diff locks that automatically disengage at a certain speed, etc etc, yet they still let you try to throw it in reverse at 100km/hr.