Shifting to neutral, vs. "unintended acceleration"

[enfield577]

Engineering examination is showing that in some of the high profile cases of "unintended acceleration," the Toyota owners' stories do not match the evidence from their cars and onboard computers, at least as far as their accounts of braking are concerned.What I'm wondering about is the people who claim that they tried to shift to neutral (or even reverse and park), and their cars would not go out of gear (automatics). So how does shift selection actually work in these models (and in our Vibes)? Is it electronic, like the throttle position system? That is, is there a manual linkage that actually moves a shaft inside the transmission, that selects the gears, or is there an electronic sensor that knows what position the shifter is in, and sends this info to the transmission control module, which then commands the proper solenoids to engage clutches for the selected gear?I suspect it is the latter. If this is the case, could there be some merit to these drivers' claims that they tried to shift out of drive but couldn't, or is this scenario pretty much impossible?I have experimented with my own car, and whatever speed I try this at (I have tried it up to about 45mph), as soon as I move the shifter up into neutral, the driveline is disconnected and the car slows down. It goes into neutral every time I move the shifter to N. (My car hasn't had any of the accelerator pedal problems or other issues.)

[djkeev]

I also wondered, so on my 07 automatic, I, being careful not to over rev the engine, tried it while going on the highway, Neutral, no problem at all.The wife and I have talked about what to do "if", so we've no major worries.If it happens, oh well. I'm actually more concerned about the new dying on highway ECM bad internal connection problem recently reported!Dave

[ColonelPanic]

I did the same thing in my '03, save for the "being careful" part. I let it scream and bounce off the rev limiter, the engine was craptastic anyway, wasn't going to make anything worse. As long as you've got a cable linkage to the transmission I don't see why you couldn't put it in neutral barring any mechanical issues with the linkage. I suspect there may be some electronic shifter controls in other cars, like the Prius with that goofy joystick shifter thingy. Those you have to move to neutral and hold it there for several seconds (and you're at the mercy of electronics to decide whether you're going to be allowed to shift to neutral.)