06/15/2026
Hello. I'm the idiot that put his car on first gear on the highway last week. Here is the result:
TL;DR: Clutch is obliterated (obviously) but the gearbox looks fine for now, we will only know for sure tomorrow when they put the new clutch in and start it.
So I said that I wasn't going to do another post, but a lot of people were curious and wanted pictures so I changed my mind. Based on the comments from the last post, the mechanic's first reaction when he opened the hood, and the sound that I heard when I made the shift, I had a few hopes that maybe the gearbox wouldn't need to be replaced immediatelly. This is because I have the money to fix the clutch now, but I don't have money for a new gearbox. So I already work part-time while also studying, I have a full time job arranged starting October and ever since the incident I arranged for a summer job that will probably be full-time. Point is, in 6 months max I will have the money for the new box sitting in the bank, and will be ready to work on it when the time comes. I asked the mechanic how is it possible that the 1st gear's synchro isn't destroyed and he said that it was possible because the car doesn't have a lot of miles on it (about 40k). Anyway, we will know for sure tomorrow, I will comment here if anyone is interested. So in the last post I had a lot of people that said bad things about me, and rightfully so, don't get me wrong, but there were people that were supportive and I want to thank all of them, their comments were good for me. If the gearbox is fine for a few months, there is no problem, it will all be fixed. This is a good time to mention that this is my dad's car, he puts 90% of the miles on it. He reacted very calmly to the whole thing and, if all goes well, I will have gifted him a new clutch and maybe a new gearbox, so at least he gets something out of this. Thank you again to all the wonderful people in the last post, you really helped me.
