Gondor's Grumblings

NARSES2 · January 23, 2026, 05:13:01 AM

Must admit I get a fair few of my parcels (Big H, Amazon etc) delivered to the local drop off points nowadays and then stroll up and get them. Big H is the local Royal Mail delivery office and Amazon is the local PO. Both only a mile away or so.

Gondor · January 23, 2026, 08:24:24 AM

I scared myself on the way home today. I thought I had caused a very expensive trip to the garage. I was changing gear, I can't remember why, but I ended up trying to put the car in reverse while travelling forwards!

Not a recommended thing to do.
The result was a bit of noise as I selected the gear; fortunately, that made me realise that I had made a mistake, so I didn't bring my clutch foot up, which would have been very expensive indeed. What did happen was that a lot of icons on the dashboard started flashing, some of them alternating in the centre of the dashboard with lots of very expensive-sounding words attached to the icons. As I was expecting a couple of packages, I simply drove home. No problems with just driving the car, the indicators worked well too. Getting home and finding that the packages had arrived, so I had lunch and decided to go to the garage to book it in to get looked at after feeding myself. Thankfully, as I started the car, there were no warning lights! Lots of relief, I could see large amounts of money heading towards my next garage bill for a while.

scautomoton · January 23, 2026, 12:50:17 PM

Yeah you'll have generated some sort of gear ratio implausibility error. That sort of thing normally clears after an ignition cycle.

Gondor · January 23, 2026, 01:58:21 PM

Sounds like it.

Charlie_c67 · January 23, 2026, 05:04:55 PM

Don't worry, at least you didn't do what my uncle did and somehow manage to put it in reverse on the motorway!

No-one's sure how he managed it...

scautomoton · January 24, 2026, 12:00:04 AM

I remember being on a test trip in France a few years ago. We'd flown into Lyon and were working 2hrs away at the Michelin site in Clermont-Ferrand. At the airport we collected the obligatory hire car, which in this case was a large Nissan SUV of some sort. We duly loaded up, and then high-tailed it to Clermont. As per standard operating procedure the hire car was beasted by all drivers for every minute it was driven that week. And I mean beasted. My usual instructions to the rest of the team were to ensure we handed it back with blue brake discs.

Cue day 5 and we're leaving work, I'm driving. I was feeling particularly racey, so promptly smashed it through the gears as we drove out of the industrial estate surrounding Michelin. I stopped at this one junction, dialled in a bootful of revs and side-stepped the clutch. I then went for a flat shift into second (which it did NOT like), and then duly went for another flat shift into 3rd. However, I may have missed 3rd and got 1st..... at about 50mph. The rev counter briefly hit about 10k rpm (it was a diesel), accompanied by the most excruciating shriek from the gearbox before I managed to dip the clutch and save us from a meeting with the local breakdown service.

For the final couple of days it still worked, albeit with a really obvious whining from the gearbox. So like all good boys do, we limped it back to Lyon on departure day, dumped it in the far end of the return car park, handed the keys over, and eff'd off sharpish!

Gondor · January 24, 2026, 05:08:57 AM

The previous "interesting" driving episode I had was driving down the A1(M) just north of Scotch Corner, outside lane, when there started to be a high-pitched whining coming from the gearbox. Being a bit concerned about this unexpected sound, I decided to head towards the inner lanes and proceeded to put my foot on the clutch.
The next thing that I remember is the gear lever deciding to make a break for freedom when it jumped out of the gearbox, hit off the roof of the car, and ended up on the floor between my feet after missing the steering wheel, my legs and the seat!
I pulled up onto the hard shoulder and found that the engine was still ok. I tried to put the gear lever back into the gearbox to see if I could get the car to move. I was a few hundred yards away from the off-ramp and the motorway services. Amazingly, I could get at least first gear, so I drove into the services where there was an AA breakdown guy helping someone else.
A rather hairy experience which was caused by a missing seal between the gearbox and the prop shaft.

PR19_Kit · January 24, 2026, 05:16:14 AM

Gearboxes, they're always wanting to get you.

When I drove a Mondeo Estate for my company car, I was in the Tag lane crossing the New Severn Bridge (The Old one was closed of course....) which was on the far right hand side of the toll booths, and when I changed into 2nd accelerating away, the gear lever just fell over onto the floor, leaving me in neutral, and about 9 lanes worth of traffic to cross to reach the hard shoulder!

Luckily the car had enough momentum to actually do that, and I came to a halt, hazard lights on overtime, right alongside an emergency phone. Phew.

The recovery service showed up with a Peugeot 305 as a 'replacement vehicle', so I pointed out that I could probably get the 305 in the back of the Mondeo, all in one piece, so they'd better go away and find a proper car!

The Rat · January 24, 2026, 06:26:15 AM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on January 24, 2026, 05:16:14 AMI pointed out that I could probably get the 305 in the back of the Mondeo,

Needed a longer fuselage.

scooter · January 24, 2026, 06:35:09 AM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on January 24, 2026, 05:16:14 AMThe recovery service showed up with a Peugeot 305 as a 'replacement vehicle', so I pointed out that I could probably get the 305 in the back of the Mondeo, all in one piece, so they'd better go away and find a proper car!

Sounds like the time I put my Tahoe in for body work, and the rental agency gave me a...Geo Metro hatchback. It was quite fun squeezing myself, my Army Guard go bag, and a medic bag in there.

Charlie_c67 · January 24, 2026, 03:43:48 PM

Never broken a gearbox. Just snapped an accelerator cable and a drive shaft...

(Not at the same time!)

Rick Lowe · January 24, 2026, 04:17:02 PM

Had an interesting experience once; I was dicking around and had my left foot up on the dash... (don't ask...) and when I swung it down, I collected the column shift and slammed her into first - at about 100k's.

Thankfully, it was a Torqueflite box on a 225 ci slant 6, and she took it very well.
But I didn't feel the need to repeat the experience...

kerick · January 24, 2026, 06:38:04 PM

You guys need to be more careful!

Worst I ever had was driving home in the company truck one afternoon when I heard a sound that I swore was a helicopter over the truck. I couldn't imagine how that could be happening but I finally pulled over anyway as I figured something had to be wrong with the truck. Sure enough it was the right rear tire flat as a pancake and all tore up from driving on it. Fortunately an Illinois Department of Transportation tow truck pulled up in like two minutes and changed it for me. He had to use a massive wrench to get the lug nuts off. I doubt I could have done it with the usual lug wrench. Got lucky that day.

Captain Canada · January 24, 2026, 08:40:57 PM

Quote from: kerick on January 24, 2026, 06:38:04 PMYou guys need to be more careful!

It's so strange, aging. Everything you took for granted is now a danger lol. I left the forktuck in gear at work the other day. The park brake wasn't holding ( im guessing it was iced up as we were out loading in the snow ) and luckily buddy noticed it coming around behind us........

kerick · January 24, 2026, 08:49:59 PM

Quote from: Captain Canada on January 24, 2026, 08:40:57 PM
Quote from: kerick on January 24, 2026, 06:38:04 PMYou guys need to be more careful!

It's so strange, aging. Everything you took for granted is now a danger lol. I left the forktuck in gear at work the other day. The park brake wasn't holding ( im guessing it was iced up as we were out loading in the snow ) and luckily buddy noticed it coming around behind us........

That could have turned out badly!