Accidently put into reverse while driving on dual carriageway

marlasinger

Need some advice/opinions on how much damage I've done to my car.

I was on the dual carriageway doing about 60mph. I wanted to overtake, so went to put car into 4th gear, except...don't know how it happened...but I pulled the gearstick straight down where Reverse is. Horrible grinding noise, and after that I really struggled to change gears...it just wouldn't go in any of the gears easily. I managed to get it home (only about 2 miles away), and when I parked up, I tried to move it through the gears. When putting it into reverse, it made a horrible grinding noise and wouldn't go it.

Turned the engine off, waited a bit, started it up and it seemed ok in all gears. Moved off in 1st but the engine was juddering and the car was barely moving. Tried moving it through the gears again, and it struggled in all of them and made grinding noise in reverse (almost like something was spinning, and I was rubbing against it).

I've left it now...nothing else I can do, until tomorrow when I will get the garage to take a look.

I've googled it and can't find anything, except that apparently you can't damage a car by sticking it in reverse while moving forward, because of a reverse lockout? Well I've clearly damaged something mine.

Does anyone have any idea what I've done?

The car is a 2005 Toyota Yaris, if that makes any difference. Am I looking at something that is basically going to write off the car?

Feeling like an absolute idiot and kicking myself for not paying attention.

Nodding_Donkey

I would guess that the clutch and gearbox, at the very least, need replacing.

forgotmyname

New gearbox. The bearings will be knackered.

marlasinger

Great.

How can this happen? Everything I google, says it's makes a grinding noise but no damage will be done.

I'm guessing this will cost me upwards of £1,000? Now I need to decide if I should scrap the thing instead.

arcon5

A breakers yard will bring the cost down. A risk in having it done though

Netwizard

Lots of Yaris gearboxes on ebay. Depends what model you have as to the cost though

colino

Is this a manual or auto? Your googling is referring to autos and your symptoms describe a manual gearbox and clutch thoroughly humped.

marlasinger

This is a manual.....Most google results brought up autos.

Just can't believe this hasn't happened to someone else before. I must be such an idiot (or bad driver).

Isn't it risky getting a new gearbox from ebay, as in there will be no guarantee?

Retrogamer

Ebay can be hit and miss.

I bought a gearbox from there for my 106. It had done 150k miles and the clutch went so made sense to replace the gearbox with a lower mileage one whilst it was off.

Got one off ebay with 77k on it.

Got it fitted and whilst fitting i noticed the gearbox oil residue was in bad condition.
Fitted it and on de-acceleration it would pop out of gear. Long runs it would make a bad whine and eventually it lost 2nd gear altogether after a week or so.

Complained via ebay and was invited to send it back for a full refund of the box price. No postage covered and no labour covered.

TL;DR?
Don't buy from ebay

Find somewhere local that specialises in transmission repairs and they might be able to supply and fit a recondition box and take yours part exchange for a fraction of the price a generic garage would charge

forgotmyname

Yes an auto will have a lockout to prevent reverse being selected when driving as its easy to do in an auto.

But with a manual you would really need to force it to get it to enagage. Firstly you will have the gear lever mechanism. Lift the collar or push/pull against a spring to select reverse. Then the noise should give the game away before it got to a deathly painful dying noise.

You will have chipped teeth at the very least. But the fragments will be floating around the gearbox and possibly the diff as well just waiting to cause major havoc.

The noises you heard were probably not far off those of a diff locking solid at 50mph. That made me cringe.

marlasinger

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to call a garage this morning to tow it away. Feeling mighty mighty stupid when I'm going to have to explain how I did this.

On the Yaris, I don't need to push the gear lever down, or lift the collar to put into reverse, I just simply move it into reverse as though it was any other gear. I stopped as soon as I heard the grinding/crunching noise, but clearly not soon enough.