Annoying fact about these shifters, when mated to the ZF-8: if your car doesn't start you gotta go under it and screw in some bolt to make it go into neutral.
It's amazing the vast library of very make/model/config specific "put this in neutral" hacks that are basically required knowledge for modern tow truck operators.
> First start by safely lifting the car in the air. We always advise using a quality floor jack and jack stands to support the vehicle. Once it is in the air, you need to gain access to the transmission. Depending on the car in question, this could be behind belly pans or covers. Once you've gained access to the transmission, locate the hex-head bolt. Use a 5mm hex bit socket on a ratchet to rotate the bolt to the right. Listen for a click as you move the foot up. The click indicates that the transmission is no longer in park, and the car will roll freely.
Yikes! Best to keep a 5mm internal hex in the glovebox.
The gearbox is going to be shifted out of park WHILE THE MECHANIC IS UNDER THE CAR.
If there is a subtle error in setting up the jack (e.g. if there is a slight gradient and the drive wheels are on the ground, so that the car is "resting" against the parking brake), shifting it into neutral could cause the car to move slightly as the longitudinal force is transferred from the parking brake to the wheel chocks / handbrake / jack / etc. If the situation is marginal, this could cause the car to fall off the jack and crush the mechanic.
It just seems like a recipe for (occasional, statistical) disaster.
I would never go under a jacked up car. Just use the jack to change the tyres that is it. Anything else I take it to the mechanic who will lift it with the proper machinery.
Oh indeed, most people wouldn't. I bet some people do though.
Especially if the car is broken down in the road (which is where cars usually break down), and there is no tow truck but someone has a jack (e.g. the basic jack for changing the tyre) and there is pressure to get the car off the road. It's inevitable that out of all the millions of cars and people, someone will be in
a hurry to jack it up using the spare tyre jack and not much else, climb under, put it in neutral without thinking of what will happen next, and get crushed.
> Probably was in neutral without handbrake, otherwise: Holy shit, they gotta be liable for damage done.
Even in neutral, you'll damage the diff by having the wheels drive it without a load
"Normal" for a diff is to either have the engine drive it with a load (the road) or have the road drive it with a load (then engine). Applying a driving force on it while it freewheels without a load is not good.
This apparently isn't universally true; the manual for my rear wheel drive car says to lift it by the front wheels, put it in neutral, and leave the rear wheels on the ground.
The automatic version does have to be set to a specific gear, and there are speed and towed distance limits.
Eh, not full well. I myself have towed a Miata rear wheels down after removing the driveshaft. (In a parallel universe I very well could have been the tow operator that the commenter some levels up saw) My understanding is that re:Miata the diff isn't the problem, (since its always just kinda full of oil/grease that is flung around by the gears) it's that the transmission may only pump oil when operating normally. I think my previous comment replied to the wrong person actually. Things are getting blurry at 3am here...
I’d say it is always safer to fully load a car on a flatbed and tow it with none of the wheels turning. I never understood why it is allowed to tow someone else’s car with their wheels turning.
That does remind me of one time when I was living in Boston and my apartment window was right next to a tiny "golden street" - no resident parking restrictions, no street sweeping, no snow artery, nothing on restrictions. Room for maybe a dozen cars. Very secure because it was well lit with multiple cameras from an adjacent church. (and no one breaks into cars in front of God!) Near a train stop. You could leave a car there for weeks. Such a parking place is exceedingly rare in the Boston city core. Only threat was, after 72 hours, someone might call it in as 'abandoned' per state law.[1] Generally this wasn't done for neighbors and maintained-looking cars as a courtesy.
Anyway, someone who didn't seem to be a neighbor decided to park a big crusty step van there for a month and a neighbor must have took offence to that and called it in, because two non-flatbed Boston city police tow trucks showed up in the middle of the night to take it away. I became aware of this due to a horrible intermittent screeching sound - I opened my blinds and saw the two tow trucks, facing opposite directions and using one side of each of their hydraulic wheel lifts in tandem on the outer wheels of the step-van to pull the parallel-parked vehicle out perpendicularly into the street. Once it was out in the street they didn't bother to put it in neutral or anything, hooked the front on one of the trucks and drove away with the locked up rear tires just screeching all the way away into the night. Parts of the rubber tracks were left behind for years on that street.
The lesson to all who saw those tracks - Boston don't give no fucks about your street parked vehicle if it is deemed abandoned by the community!
The tow truck operators I have seen didn't give a shit. Pulled hard enough the car ends up on the trailer no matter whether it is in gear or not. No apparent concern for the wellbeing of the drivetrain.
Yeah, I really should have said good modern tow truck operators. Ah well. Thankfully every tow truck operator I've worked with has been very professional.
