Reverse gear

[Cygnus]

Maybe I'm stupid, but I just found out that there is no safety mechanism for the reverse gear in the Polo. As in, normally, without depressing the clutch, you cannot move the shifter to any gears. However, you can still try and push it into reverse, resulting in a big grind! Happened when I was half awake trying to reverse the car... Is it normal to not having to clutch to shift, that sounds to me to be pretty poor design..

[blutopless2]

all my previous manual cars you could shift without the use of the clutch. tho i havent tried it with my new cars i would think they would be the same.
its actually a useful feature if your clutch dies on you.
years ago in my 57 beetle i had to drive home without the use of the clutch as the thrust bearing came loose in the forks.
took me a few gear changes to get the revs correct etc but after a while you do it without much thought... taking off from a standstill is a laugh tho..

think there is a lock out tho to stop you from shifting from 5th gear into reverse. sorry... thinking of the old 5 speed holden boxes where reverse was straight down from 5th. forgot the polo is across from 1st.

[VW GTI]

I used to be able to change up every gear in my Honda Civic without the clutch. Only needed it to get started.

Can you tell I didn't care much?

[Spec83]

Don't know about you guys.. but to get into reverse I need to push down on the shifter

I would class this as a safety lockout

[Kai]

Don't know about you guys.. but to get into reverse I need to push down on the shifter

I would class this as a safety lockout

Same as me?

[Timbo]

I don't know of any manual car that locks you out of moving the gearstick, just because you haven't depressed the clutch. That sort of safety 'feature' if that's what the OP thinks it might be, could be much more dangerous, when you think about it

[Cygnus]

Fair enough. I guess there wasn't any resistance to get into reverse without clutch where as it's pretty difficult (I haven't tried too hard) to shift into a forward gear...

Thanks for clearing things up for me.