My roommate's car rolled into the house the other day. If any of you guys post in Chit Chat you might be aware of this. The damage is below:





What I'm really curious about is how this happened. Perhaps you guys can shed some light on the cause of the incident. The facts (as I've been told) are that his car was parked at the top of the driveway, with the drive wheels just over the ridge where the driveway starts to decline. The drive wheels were pointed slightly to the left, the manual transmission was in 1st gear, and the parking brake was fully engaged. It had not rained recently so the driveway was dry. However he had washed his car within the hour (but had driven to the grocery store afterwards before coming home so I doubt the brakes were wet). This is how he always parks his car. However, this time after about 20 minutes the car decided to roll down the driveway and cause thousands of dollars of damage. If it had been me the only things I would have done differently would be to have the transmission in reverse and the steering wheel cranked all the way to the left (so that in case something let go the car would harmless roll about 20 ft into the grassy hill and stop).

Thoughts, suggestions? My initial thought is that the parking brake cable wasn't tight enough and the engine compression wasn't enough to stop the car from rolling. BTW while its obvious from the pic that it's an RSX, it is a 2002 with 105k miles.

[Edited on June 24, 2010 at 2:38 PM. Reason : roll]

6/24/2010 2:36:44 PM

I think your initial thought is pretty much on the money. With enough pressure on it, a car won't pop out of gear very easily. I've seen your driveway; steep as a motherfucker. On a regular grade, a car left in gear will likely creep over time. Give it a little momentum, and that's all she wrote. It would have been a lot worse if the car was out of gear.

6/24/2010 2:50:01 PM

6/24/2010 2:50:21 PM

^ I have no idea what that is doing in this thread.

Was the car still in gear after the collision? Just wondering if there is a possibility someone was in there trying to steal stuff and knocked it out of gear or something.

6/24/2010 2:58:30 PM

Yeah it was still in gear. Car has an alarm, I don't think anyone was trying to tamper with it (nothing of value inside either)

6/24/2010 3:38:52 PM

Had to have just turned the engine over all the way down the hill then. I wonder if being in a higher gear would make it harder for this to happen? Seems like first would be the easiest to turn the car over in.

6/24/2010 3:42:40 PM

thats what i thought at first. but you def. get the most engine braking at low speeds in first due to highest engine revolutions.

it would be simple to replicate. turn the car off, put it in 1st, and lift off the brakes. its going to slowly roll down the hill or your room mate is covering his own ass for not leaving it in gear.

6/24/2010 3:51:17 PM

1st or reverse would be the highest (numerically) gears so those would be preferable for resistance to rolling.

Maybe later we'll do some "experiments" with the Integra (his current ride till the RSX returns) on the driveway

6/24/2010 3:56:39 PM

I guess that makes sense.

6/24/2010 4:00:07 PM

s2k at 11:1 or whatever should be hard to move. My civic is about 8:1 which would be a good test.

6/24/2010 4:10:02 PM

I have a Cuban son-in-law who calls his son "loco."

6/24/2010 11:42:26 PM

didn't those 2002 RSX's have tranny issues? just wondering..

also, maybe the e-brake wasn't tight enough

weird.

6/25/2010 12:18:27 AM

^The thing is, look at the photo of the car in my original post. It's sitting there on the hill in gear and with the parking brake on...just like when it crashed.

*scratches head*

6/25/2010 9:13:38 AM

I thought about this thread yesterday when I parked the Civic on a boat ramp for a few minutes.

6/25/2010 9:28:06 AM

more than likely, car was not in gear as you were *told. My guess.

6/25/2010 11:22:23 AM

Quote :

"or your room mate is covering his own ass for not leaving it in gear"

6/25/2010 11:59:56 AM

no one has brought up the obvious answer to this problem, and that is the toddles monster

6/25/2010 1:14:29 PM

LOL

Todd was at Nag's Head when this occured.

6/25/2010 1:19:41 PM