Is This The Worse Gear Dial Placement Of All Time?

[TheSEARCH]

On my buddies old ford cant remember the model 1970's something you could indeed be moving in reverse and slam into drive to do a burnout. Yes it did work,. Yes dumb kids behind the wheel.

Sponsored

 

[zstansel]

It's come to my attention that a lot of people don't like the rotary gear dial in the maverick. Personally, I love it, and got used to it after a few days of ownership. Even my technology and change adverse 57 year old mother loves it.

But for anyone who thinks the maverick's dial is bad, I found one that's easily 10 times worse. Feast your eyes on the dashboard of the Chrysler Pacifica.

Yep, that's a rotary style gear knob sitting right next to the radio dial and climate controls, ya know, all the dials that the driver is blindly spinning as they're driving down the road at 80 mph. There are a few times while renting this POS that my 68 year old father would feel around for the radio dial, not wanting to take his eyes off the road, and land on the gear shifter instead, and we'd all have to scream before he could turn it.

Unless there's some sort of gear lockout while in motion, this design is genuinely going to get someone killed someday, or at least destroy a few transmissions.

This is pretty hilarious. Once our maverick gets here, it will ping pong between my and my wife's daily. My wife's daily is this pacifica LOL. It was definitely panic-inducing a few times, but if my wife can get used to that, while eating, doing make-up, and screaming at the 4 year old, y'all can handle adjusting to the mav's.

 

[Tiger Dude]

Auto transmissions are not going to shift into reverse or park while the vehicle is in motion. That has been standard since the beginning of automatic transmissions. Even Mythbusters showed it won't happen (or that the vehicle could even get the gears to shift anyway). I routinely shift into D before I've finished backing up.

lolwut? Maybe not at high speed, but transmissions used to definitely shift while the car was moving.

 

[GPSMan]

Speaking of burn-outs.

I had my Mav Hybrid up on a ramp yesterday. Just one tire. Parking brake on.

Went to go down the ramp, forgot the parking brake was on. Hit the gas pedal pretty gently.

But ya know how there is half a second for the electric parking brake to automatically release? Then all at once wheel spun. The one on the ramp was the path of least resistance.

Truck remained stationary. The wheel flung the ramp (I only had one tire up) about 10 feet.

Never had that happen before.

 

[OneAlienBoi]

This is pretty hilarious. Once our maverick gets here, it will ping pong between my and my wife's daily. My wife's daily is this pacifica LOL. It was definitely panic-inducing a few times, but if my wife can get used to that, while eating, doing make-up, and screaming at the 4 year old, y'all can handle adjusting to the mav's.

Yeah, if you can get used to a Pacifica, a maverick will be no problem .

 

[OneAlienBoi]

No they will not go into reverse by accident while driving. My 200 is similar I went to turn the vent fan down and turned the wrong one, nothing happened

I know some transmissions will default to neutral if this happens. Was that the case with yours, or did it just stay in drive?

 

[Aaron F]

Funny thing, my wife has had a Pacifica for several years. I got used to her rotary dial and can easily reach out with muscle memory and find shift and radio controls with no issue. When I get into the maverick, even after 6 straight months and 7500 miles, I find myself searching for the rotary dial.

 

[NJBob]

Reminds me of neutral drop burnouts. My 84 extended Econoline wouldn't smoke the tires with it's 302/2bbl. So I would go in reverse a few feet then roll in neutral give her some revs then slip into drive. The AOD held up fine and the tires would break free and burn for a while. It also had the 2 piece driveshaft so it was balanced and braced nicely with 3 joints to share the load. I could also put all my buddies in the way back behind the tires keep it in first and slap the pedal repeatedly to get the front end hopping. the Twin I beams had a lot of droop so I don't know if I ever pulled a tire up but it sure felt like it!

Lol I did that too. Surprised I never wrecked the trans. In the 70s I worked for a pizza place in NJ. The owner would buy his bread in Brooklyn and I would have to go get it. After piling in a bunch of teens in the pizza van we would shut the engine off then back on going through the Holland tunnel. It would backfire the engine. Oh the messed up things we did.

Sponsored