SW17LS

There should be a standard way to engage gears, a selector has to move up for reverse and down for drive...something...you should be able to get in any vehicle and easily put it into drive, reverse and park.

If we can reduce the 1% to .25%...thats worthwhile. I also had the same Jeep and shifter as Anton and I absolutely see how it happened.

I have a funny story about that. My cousin, his wife and I were in WV at this dive bar we go to, my cousin in law was our DD and we were driving the Jeep with that shifter. We were pretty drunk, and she was tired of us. We spilled water on her and she left lol. My cousin goes "we should go with her so she doesn't leave us". My response was "Don't worry, she will never be able to figure out how to get that Jeep into reverse". We went out 15 minutes later and sure enough, there she sat...she couldn't get it into reverse.

Thats a 100% true story!

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

so from PARK, a traditional shifter does NOT move 'up for reverse', it's down, through R - N - then D.. you only go 'up' to reverse from N or D.

so i had to refresh my mem on the jeep one (that was recalled and replaced anyway all because of that one celebrity darwin award).


and hey, you also have to go down from park to reverse, neutral, drive, and 'up' back to reverse then park. seems 'traditional' in that sense.

but i noticed from the video it's not easy to put it in reverse or neutral. i don't even really understand what yelchin did because for the car to crush him against the garage it would have to be in drive or neutral but if i recall he was uphill from the car so it would have to be drive. who gets out of a car in drive and rushes around to the front? and to leave it in drive you basically have to just avoid doing anything which is crazy. ??

i wrote "i bet 99% of all accidents related to shifters happen in parking lots, garages, or home driveways. hardly a 'recipe for disaster'.[/quote]

obviously a total guess on my part, but that would make what happened to yelchin part of the 99% not part of the 1%.

funny story, which means it's a safety feature. (dumb people can't drive it)

SW17LS

I’m not saying it should be any specific way, it should just always be the same way. Whatever way that is. The issue is that the control interfaces are just so different.

What Anton did was try and put it into park and it wound up in neutral, which happened to me all the time. It should have gone to park when he opened the door…all those cars do now (both of mine do)

FrankReynoldsCPA

Yelchin had just pulled out of his gate and got out to go back to the gate(behind the Jeep) and check his mail. It then rolled back and pinned him into the gate until he was discovered later.

It's not really the shifter's fault here, it's Yelchin not understanding how to operate his daily driver. That said, most serious automakers seems to have anticipated this kind of forgetfulness and added a safety nanny to automatically go into Park when you open a door(my BMW does this). Part of the recall after his death added that safety feature on existing cars while FCA would go on to ditch the monostable shifter in the Jeep.

People have been forgetful with transmissions and cars for decades. My grandpa almost killed himself in a nearly identical fashion to Yelchin in the 50's or 60's by getting out to open a gate on his farm and being pushed through it by the car he left in neutral.

I think transmission shifters have been diverse enough for long enough that standardization isn't needed. People should already be used to them being different. Going back decades, some had column shifters, some had console shifters, etc. I remember a 90's Chrysler minivan being laissez-faire about whether you pressed the brake before going in or out of Park, while others made you press it. Some had a wider range of gears below D for shifting down, others didn't. Some Ford trucks had a button to lock out overdrive vs just shifting down to 3rd.

I like column shifters and I'm fine with the monostable shifters. Never been big on dial, button, or even just regular console shifters. The BMW monostable shifter is much more intuitive than the one in that Jeep video. Push it forward for R, pull it back for D. Button for park. Slap it to the left for S/M. Took 20 seconds to learn it.

SW17LS

No, it was the shifters fault. You have to have had that vehicle to get it. You push forward for park and for reverse, you just push harder for park but thats a fine line and theres no way to feel or see that its in park unless you look for the P. On your BMW you press a button for park. If you push foprward and don't engage a gear properly it defaults to neutral, and had no safety interlock to put it in park if the door is opened. If it were basically any other car he would be alive. Its the poor design of that shifter and system that caused his death.

Its easy to say that we wouldn't make a mistake like that, but driving that same Jeep I put it in the wrong gear all. the. time.

But that was more his fault because the lever physically can be seen and felt going into and out of neutral

Think about it though, the physical motion of using them though was the same. Push it all the way forward or UP until it wont go any more, Park. One click down, reverse, one click down, neutral, one cick down, drive. Column or console the operation was the same and the physicality of feeling the shifter move and having it stay in the posittion of the gear that was selected made them safer and more universal.

Maybe thats the universal way in the modern era it should be, push a button for park, up for reverse and down for drive. There should be a universal way though.

Striker223

That Jeep shifter everyone is talking about (and I've used a few on customer cars) is exactly the same as my Audis btw. That "push more for park" has a double detent that if you are a sensitive person you feel but every other person I've had try it always looks at it weird the first time they use it for that reason.

My car will at least auto switch to park if you turn it off and if you open a door throw the parking brake on. I disabled the park brake feature as I sometimes creep them around with the door partially open. They also are very insistent via warnings to put the car in park

Anyway It's the most sensitive shifter I've used in terms of how easy it is to over or undershoot the range you want. There are 5 positions with it always being in the middle and there are two up and two down that you can pull directly through the first one and that acts to just skip you completely over the closest range you are in. So if you are N for example and push forward just a little to much you don't go to R you are in park.

Absolutely annoying and really does take a few days to be able to always use it based on feel alone.

SW17LS

"If you are a sensitive person" means if you're in a hurry like people are most of the time you're not going to feel it lol

Exactly, which is why my cousin in law couldn't get it into reverse.

Striker223

I don't disagree at all really, I usually try to not be in a rush but it indeed takes an unusual amount of attention to use.

My Jeep I just slam into the gear with the button locked front/back shifter. The Lexus/Toyota has the zig zig thing that the worst that can happen is manual mode or lower range, Mercedes is idiot proof, the Jetta is a manual so I would hope you know how to drive one of those lol!

SW17LS

Everybody tries not to be in a rush, but most of us are often in a rush and thats when dangerous mistakes happen.

Carfan94

As terrible of a design that ZF joystick shifter that Chrysler and Audi used was. People really ought to be in the habit of engaging the parking brake before exiting the vehicle.

But I think with these joystick shifters there should always be a separate button for park. That ZF shifter is a terrible, TERRIBLE design.

Striker223

I always do, I don't like the car being able to rock back onto the prawl etc so I always lock it in place with the park brake before I let off the service brake.

The LS is automatic if desired

FrankReynoldsCPA

The BMW has autohold which presses and holds the brakes when you come to a stop, and engages the parking brake if you put it in park. It's nifty, great for drive-thrus(then I forget I don't have it when I'm in the truck).

mmarshall

Bingo. I see people forgetting to do this all the time. You can often tell, even if you aren't in the vehicle with them, by the way the vehicle rocks or shifts slightly before the parking-crawl engages.

Depends on where the button is located. As I stated in the OP, the button can be in a position where it is too easy to brush inadvertently when the vehicle is moving and damage or ruin the transmission.

IMHO most of the E-joysticks are bad designs.

Margate330

I like that, that would work for me.

Sounds risky.
I can see my wife hitting stuff with a joystick.
My Rx330 has a foolproof shifter, have to try really hard to screw it up. Lol

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

with sticks, stalks, buttons, *****, screens, nothing (tesla that senses, lol), etc., that isn't going to happen.

it's also been stated here how the yelchin tragedy could have easily been handled by the car going into park automatically when the door was opened, which doesn't require a different shifter.

on a related note... my lc500 shifter is really weird, lol.

the shifter always stays in the same spot and to go from park to either reverse or drive you have to pull the shifter LEFT then up or down respectively. thankfully i don't have to put it in neutral ever because off the top of my head, i've no idea how. for park there's a separate 'P' button.