meZoom!

first off, I will say that i am a strong believer in (duh) not hitting anything if at all possible, but i also believe in hitting the right objects if crashing is inevitable. for example, if someone cuts me off, i will hit THEM instead of swerving and hitting someone "innocent." what does that have to do w/ this? i dunno.

Now, this morning i am driving to school on the 405 in the #1 lane. going about 75-80mph, i was only leaving about a 2 second cushion between myself and the car in front (my 1st mistake). Suddenly all the cars in front of me just STOP. I simultaneously straighten my steering wheel and slam on the brakes while the Infiniti QX4 SUV decides to dodge into the carpool lane to the left while hitting the brakes so she's doing this 1-wheel off the ground out of control thing that SUV's tend to do before they roll over, but thankfully she doesnt. I downshift from top gear(4th) to second....at highway speeds it is hard to do, but i do it. I realize I am still not stopping fast enough and I see that the Prelude behind me is having trouble stopping too, so I gotta stop as close as i can to the car in front of me without hitting it, so Miss Prelude behind doesnt rear-end me. Realizing I really gotta stop NOW, as i am still travelling about 50mph but going down, I shifted into FIRST. My rpm shot way up, and my engine cut off, and I have come to a stop, as well as the car in front and back of me. It all happened SO QUICK. I believe some cars behind the prelude hit, and the Lexus(?) 2 in front of the Infinity hit, but not me.

My Question is, anyone know exactly how the rev limiter/cutoff thing works on the ES? If its not that, then my car is "bad." I am sort of regretting that i downshifted, but i would have surely made contact at at least 45 mph with car in front, airbags out and all. My transmission was "old" before this and this doesn't make it any better. Maybe I should have hit in order to possibly get a new car???

as usual, be careful out there all!

Lvangundy

Hmm..

Glad you're ok!

Guess it's possible for a auto to stall if pushed too hard either way.

I know from experience that the tranny will upshift (differnet story here) even if you force it in L or 2. I had my car at like 85 or 90MPH in 2nd racing one day and it shifted to 3rd even though the shift **** was in '2'.

Nabeel

Thankfully you're OK and your car wasn't hit! The fuel flow would probably have cut off if the car exceeded redline. I think top speed in first gear for an auto ES is about 43-44mph. So you were probably right there at redline or maybe slightly beyond. Your engine would have been at that speed for a split-second, so I would not worry about engine damage. As for the tranny, I would not worry too much there either. Whatever abuse the tranny went through could not be much worse than the neutral dropping that has been done by some of us. The ES tranny is a durable unit. Come to think of it, your best bet probably would have been to just pop it in neutral and slam the brakes. Oh well, I would have done the same thing you did given the situation.

So, if your ES300 drives fine now with no problematic symptoms, then thank it for saving you from an accident by giving it a nice wash/wax or something .

meZoom!

will do!!!! anything for my Lex baby.