But it seems to me that people are coming out of the woodwork saying that their accident was caused by a malfunction of their Toyota. I'm a geezer but as long as I can remember automatic transmissions had a fail safe that you could not put them in Park or Reverse while in motion, yet two women state that they had to do that to stop their Toyotas. Anyone think that they may have just screwed up and somehow got it into Park or Reverse and trashed the tranny and this is how they are covering up their actions. Or are the transmissions on new cars able to be put into P or R while the car is in forward motion? Hey, I said I was a cynic, I don't believe half the stories that are being told about Toyotos, but then that's just one mans opinion
I vaguely remember putting an old Camry into reverse while in motion (accidently), and there was no sudden braking or grinding as a result. If anything, the engine may have cut out, and I brought the car to a stop, restarted the engine and drove off. The only clear memory I have of that incident was that nothing remarkable happened.
When I was a kid before seatbelt laws, we were on a day-long highway trip in an 1980 Pontiac sedan with my parents. Got antsy, wanted to sit up front, so crawled up front and knocked the transmission into park. Locked up the front wheels and we went skidding into the center median and I went flying under the dash and got a few scrapes along the way. But nothing broke and we drove the rest of the way home. Of course - no more climbing up front after that!
One of the people I used to work with put a rental into reverse, and killed the transmission. It was on a dare. I can't remember what it was, but we used hertz and I'm thinking a ford. Hertz drove him out a replacement car, as our company was a big customer and we were all #1 gold.
Anything can happen. Anything is a possibility. Just because it is a Toyota doesn't mean it is imune to failure.
On the Prius, shifting into R or pushing the P button will put the car in neutral. The Prius is smart. So if 3 seconds is too long to hold and just under one second is still too long (neutral) , just shift to reverse.
