On Thursday, June 10, 2021 at 12:46:30 PM UTC-4, danny burstein wrote:
[snip]

sounds like the transmission went into what's
called "limp home mode". That happens when
a whole bunch of possible things go wrong,
so it locks itself into second gear so that
you can get off the highway and, well, limp
to a repair shop.

Interesting theory, but on the vehicles I've seen where that happened,
it doesn't happen without warning indicators on the dash that are almost
impossible to ignore. Eg flashing indicator lights, messages, etc.
And Micky did say that he couldn't see the gear shift indicator and it
was difficult to get it into any gear...... IDK what happens if you have a
modern vehicle in 2nd and drive it for miles at highway speed. But I
would think you'd have to be going fast enough that it would become very
noticeable that the engine was revving abnormally high long before anything
bad could happen.

Whatever it was, sounds like he got very lucky and hopefully it's OK.
Or at least OK long enough for him to return it to his buddy. Reminds me
of the time years ago a college buddy borrowed my Fiat Spyder and drove
to the Poconos with it. He came back late at night, much later than expected.
Said the car was running terrible. Turned out to be a blown head gasket.
I then remembered a couple years earlier when we were driving my car
back from CA and crossing the Rockies. He was driving, I woke up to complaints
that the car was slowing down, struggling. He had it in 4th gear going up
a massive hill. I figure he likely did another round of that in the Poconos.
I had taught him how to drive a stick when we were in college and I remember
when he finally could at least drive around town he told me how I had
explained how it all works wrong. Today he's a plastic surgeon.





Sometimes these things are a momentary hiccup,
which, once they reset, are a-ok for the duration.

Other times, though....

There are lots of diagnostics to check out
what happened. They might, or might not,
give you the answer...


Does Micky really want to know? What you do in this situation?
To start with, there are two scenarios. One is that he had it in drive
or the correct gear position and something just happened. The other
is he had it in second on the highway for miles and that caused whatever
it was. Probably no further investigation beyond checking the fluid
is needed, unless there are more issues. Then there is whether to tell
his buddy or not. My buddy told me, I still wound up paying for the head
gasket job.....







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