Check 3 posts back from yours and you'll find the same link.

 

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by tritium_pie

 

I had a Pepboys special "Hurst" T-bar shifter on a VW Jetta '88 that wasn't all that pleasant to use. Sure, 1-2 and 3-4 was fun to slam down, but the rest was just awkward!

///Robin

 

If manual transmissions were a brand new option on cars, both the press and lawyers would be all over this as a design flaw of the transmission.

What other features are being introduced on vehicles these days that could lead to devestating failure to the most expensive part of the vehicle with the wrong pull of a switch?

The only reason lockouts are not required is because it's grandfathered situation and automatic transmissions are so prevalent.

The lack of a lockout is not an important issue to the government, to automakers, and to any significant segment of the population.

Face it, the situation is NOT going to change unless there is a motivating force to alter the status quo.

There is no excuse not to incorporate this design... cars now have similar shift interlocks on automatic transmissions, airbags, etc. and from what I remember reading the inflation-adjusted price of a vehicle is no more expensive than it was before these things. It wasn't until either the government or a highly-publicized court case created the momentum for things to change.

 

i think the point people are missing here, is that these misshifts happen while you are pushing the car pretty hard, and some of us (i'm guilty of it) get a bit excited. I use the hand positioning mentioned above, but I honestly can't say what I did when I misshifted. It is nothing more than an unlikely set of circumstances when a motor blows from a misshift. For me, I was on a road that wasn't as smooth as it looked. One bump while shifting, throws it all out of whack. Thizzle concentrating on passing/not hitting the other car, misshift.

Maybe driving classes teaches you to be calm and deal with it a lot better, but I don't think it's technique that causes these misshifts...just plain dumb accidents/luck.

we've all been a victim of bad luck or an accident before.

 

The last two posts in particular are closer to the point that should be made. Many of the first replies to my warning to newbies such as myself were answered to with arrogance such as xviper

 

use our fingers to grip the lever and practice shifting with the motor off....this way you will feel it into gear and get a sense of where the gears are...

a warning lable? common...how about one on the brakes....In the event you miss this pedal the car will not stop> of the gas cap, failure to remove this cap will make it impossible to fuel the car> or the trunk lid...failure to close this lid will result in the trunk lid being open...

you will not damage your car if you hit the rev limiter, that is what it is there for, in case of error....my take is that it will take most folks, including myself, months to learn how to drive this car smoothly and fast...so be patient and enjoy.

 

If you mechanically over rev it because you dropped to a lower gear then a rev lmiiter can't help you.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Gringo
The last two posts in particular are closer to the point that should be made. Many of the first replies to my warning to newbies such as myself were answered to with arrogance such as xviper