Talk:Gear stick

manual gearstick gate

Manual layout 2 says that reverse is in the top left to prevent catastrophic damage from accidentally shifting to reverse at high speed. IIRC there are gates in the gearbox specifically designed to prevent this in a large number of cars. I have no evidence online to back this up, just experience from my own car. I would write this up myself, but that requires effort.

Hack attack?

Has anyone else noticed that this page was showing an image in an attempt to direct users to downloading a virus? The image was replaced and was redirecting to 85.12.43.84/go =| 71.125.5.51 (talk) 01:03, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Not likely. The two images in the article at the time the above comment was posted are hosted by the wiki and are ordinary PNG and JPEG files. More likely, if the user experienced problems, it was due to corruption in the user computer's operating system. — Quicksilver^{T @} 15:03, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Move

Article should be moved to "Gear selector". Some modern vehicles use actuators other than "sticks" or levers to change gears, including push-buttons or paddle switches. A more general article title would cover them all. Moreover, calling the mechanism a "stick" sounds colloquial, terminology that is generally not used by automotive engineers. — Quicksilver^{T @} 15:08, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

What about "shifter"?

Okay, first thing...what is the name of the article "Gear stick", yet in the first sentence of the article, it says that it's a "gearstick (rarely spelled gear stick)". If it's rarely spelled "gear stick", then shouldn't the article be called "gearstick"? In any case, I question the claim that it's always called a "gearstick", "gear shift" or "gear selector" (as well as the predominance of the term "gearshift" in American English). It APPEARS to be saying the "gearstick" and "gear lever" are UK English (I'm not sure though), and "gear shift" is an American term, but I'd say that in the US, "shifter" is the most used term, short for "gear shift", and that applies to both automatics and manuals. I'm pretty sure they use that term at least half the time in most automobile magazines I read. Google "car shifter", and you'll find numerous references to "shifter levers". Heck, this article uses the term "shifter" in the body of the text! Ten times! Ever heard the phrase "column-mounted shifter"? "My new car has a 'short shifter? And not only "shifter". The only time we use anything like "gearstick" is when we refer to "driving a stick"...which I was always under the impression was short for "stick shift", another common phrase.

I also agree with the above comment; the article should be called "gear selector". Technically, it's a gear selector whether it's a manual or automatic...the lever which which you select gears. In fact, it's even MORE accurate for a manual, because you don't actually do much selecting of gears in an automatic, except reverse. You select "forward" or "reverse", along with "neutral" and a "park position". In a manual, you literally select the gears you want. I'd say that a "gearstick" is a relatively casual term for the gear selector of a manual transmission, not a different thing altogether..45Colt 04:41, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Edit: Sorry, I forgot the whole reason I got on this topic in the first place, if because I was trying to link from a page that used the phrase "shifter". I almost gave up, because I was looking for "shifter"; I only found this page by accident. Even if it doesn't say anything about the term "shifter", it ought to at least redirect to this page when you search for that term, since it's very common in the US, and most people aren't going to think to type in "gearstick". They're only slightly more likely to think of "gear shift", because to most of them it's just a "shifter"..45Colt 04:41, 2 October 2015 (UTC)