Hello,

Distracted, I did something really stupid today on the way to work: I shifted into park while driving 60+ mph. I have a 1995 Accord EX V6 2.7L with automatic transmission. I heard constant clicking until I slowed down to pull over. I didn't have any other choice but to pull over, because the shifter allowed me to change to park, but the safety mechanism wouldn't allow me to shift back into gear. So much for safety, as it looks like I beat the system! Once safely parked on the side of the road, I shifted back into gear, and finished my commute. Besides reading a hillarious, ridiculous story, does anyone have suggestions of how worried I should be about the impact on my car?

Thanks,
effj

 

I have no idea what will happen, but there is a little pin that slides in a notch to lock the wheels in place when the car is put into park. Maybe yours grind off from shifting in park while driving. You most definitely should use your hand brake a lot. I would take it to a transmission shop and see if there is anything they can tell you.

 

The park pin/pawl wont normally engage at any kind of speed, it just wont line up. That would be the sound the OP described. What I want to know is how you even got as far as reverse, generally that requires the brake to be applied and the button on the shifter depressed.

 

He was going for the ultimate AT power shift. It would have torn a hole in time... had it worked.

effj do yourself a favor and have the transmission fluid changed. Park is similar to Neutral in that no power is applied to any gears, but the parking pawl arm is allowed to engage the parking sprocket gear. More than likely, you chipped or ground the pawl on the sprocket, and your fluid may now resemble cherry red metallic paint.

 

Typically with modern cars, there is a safety mechanism that when driving you shift to reverse or park the car will know not to go into that gear, sometimes the car will coast and die.

If you had a problem you would of known it, a loud grinding, the car might of jerked etc.

 

I found in the Haynes manual where it describes the shift lock system: It "prevents the shift lever from moving from the Park position into the Reverse or Drive positions unless the brake pedal is depressed," and "nor can the shift lever be shifted when the brake pedal and the accelerator pedal are depressed at the same time." Unless the description is incomplete, I'm thinking my car wasn't designed to prevent me from shifting from Drive to Park while in motion

Thank you all for the responses. I will, at the very least, drain my AT fluid to see if there are any particles. Unfortunately, I changed my AT fluid two days before the incident (crazy coincidence!), so I am contemplating re-using the fluid if it checks out.