Just entered the m/way this morning, changing from 4th into 5th and found 3rd instead.

Probably doing about 80ish when changing.

Revs went fairly high and felt lots of engine breaking. Saw lots of soot in mirrors. Car seems to drive OK.

Will I have done any long term damage?

Mark

p.s. 07 vRS with 6000 miles

I shouldn't think you did any damage - the rev limiter is there to prevent that. Did it bounce off the limiter?

Chris

Indeed, the limiter will have saved you. 4th to 1st might be a touch more fundemental but l'm sure you've done no significant damage.

The car did seem less smokey after.

I have 2.5 years warranty left so I guess I should be OK

Thinking about the limiter.............

I can understand how they limit the revs when accelarating but do they work say if you are at max revs and then change down a gear?

In short - nope it will just rev (too) hard.

If it happens, just kick clutch down and change up again

Yes if there's too big a difference in revs the limiter isn't much use, especially as it can't disengage drive to the wheels. As WW says, best to get the clutch down and hope for the best.

Chris

I thought you could do 80 in 3rd, the revs are at around 4.5k?

try doing something similar in a tank - change down instead of up.....! 3rd to 2nd instead of 3rd to 4th.

nearly through my crew out, the Spartan was very nearly on its end!

great fun.

Was going to say, this is a common issue on the old M3 6 speed box. It's apparently very easy to hit 3rd instead of 5th at high speed and over-rev the engine. The limiter is to stop you over revving when accelerating by cutting the fuel but this will have no effect if done through momentum as the engine will spin up to whatever the gears/ road speed tell it to.

80mph in third is not the end of the world....about that point it'll simply red line, but say if you were doing a tonne.......

I thought you could do 80 in 3rd, the revs are at around 4.5k?

80mph would be near on 5000rpm for me in 3rd.

80mph would be near on 5000rpm for me in 3rd.

Still not high enough to cause any major concern.

I did it my Mk1 Golf GTI (really bad gear linkage - notorious) it used a drop of oil, but it's fine and it has 160k on the clock.

Check you oil and it'll be more than likely ok. Besides as you say its still in warrenty!!!

At least it's given the engine a chance to get rid of some stored up soot

80 'ish' will have run you into the limiter. You can just get to 80 in 3rd, in a std vRS IIRC

Steve

You can just get to 80 in 3rd, in a std vRS IIRC

yes, yes you can

I wasn;t doing anymore than 80 in 4th so I guess I would be hitting the 5000 rpm.

HJopefully no long term damage.

Cheers