My step dad backed a car into my Civic in the drive way earlier today. He wasn’t going very fast, probably not even 5 mph, so he didn’t hit it very hard, but it was enough to cause my civic to move a little bit and slightly bent my license plate in one of the corners.
My car was in Park with the parking brake engaged. Would there be any damage done to the transmission or anything else with this hit? It seemed kinda hard to get it to go into reverse right after it happened, but has seemed fine after it.
At that slow speed I doubt there would be any serious damage. When you say your car moved, do you mean it rocked a little? No doubt it would.
The only damage I can imagine happening is if the parking brake didn’t lock the wheels the load on the parking pawl MAY have been sufficient to bend it a little.
You did say that the shifter worked alright after putting it into reverse.
I doubt there’d be any damage, my car has been hit like that twice and it’s now 19 years old with the original transmission and it still works perfectly. If it starts acting funny after this then you might want to get it checked out, otherwise don’t worry about it.
Take a close look on the ground where the wheels were when the vehicle was moved slightly. If on concrete or asphalt, if you don’t notice any really small skid marks from the tires, it’s most likely that your vehicle is o.k. I also agree with roadrunner. If mmsamma chooses to comment on this specific issue, just ignore the ignorant, totally negative jerk.
I’m not entirely sure if it rocked or actually moved a little bit since I didn’t actually see it happen, my mom did. The shifter was a bit harder to move right after it happened, but I drove it back and forth in the driveway putting it in reverse, then in drive, then park, reverse and drive and everything seemed alright driving around town.
The most likely unseen damage is to the bumper shocks. You might see the shocks and where the mount to the body if you crawl under the car, If the bumper is evenly spaced left-to-right, it is unlikely there is any damage.