I suspect my friend gnaws on her gear stick.

    by Abyttleplants

    36 Comments

    1. What car? The stick shift in my Mustang has started to come apart in a similar manner. Though not nearly this bad – yet anyway…

    2. AbabababababababaIe on

      She might slam it. Especially if she wears a ring, material stresses can build over time

    3. Slipp3ry_N00dle on

      I remember I had a sudden bad clutch cylinder or something, I could not shift into gear and resorted to forcing the stick, shattering the knob.

      Reminds me of that.

    4. Good anti-theft system.

      “How many gears does this have?” Idk

      “Where’s the reverse gear?” Idk

    5. the exact same thing is happening to mine, it’s just cheap old car plastic returning to the earth

    6. Peugeot 207 for the win ! Mine is starting to disintegrate as well, tho it’s much less advanced than… *whatever this is*

    7. Fancy-Candidate-6600 on

      Looks like stress fractures. If the driver is new to manuals or has a bad habit of hard shifting it causes the plastic to develop microscopic cracks. Prolonged UV exposure causes the material to become weak and brittle, allowing those cracks to spread. I’ve seen in happen on tons of vehicles when I used to work in a mechanic shop. Usually in vehicles that are at least 20 years old or were driven by younger inexperienced drivers (although I will admit that part could be correlation with the age and cost of the vehicles and not causative).

      As for the scratches and nicks in the metal underneath, the metal component looks like it was cast out of pot metal of some kind. Since that part doesnt normally get seen or handled the manufacturer doesn’t go to as much trouble to clean up casting marks and imperfections on the finish. Some of those scratches look newer as well, which suggests one of the drivers wears a ring on that hand as well. The ring(s) could also contribute to the wear and tear that would cause the plastic to break in the first place.

      My take: your friend most likely doesn’t chew or gnaw on their shifter. I could be wrong and will happily admit I’m no expert on the subject but from my experiences that looks quite similar to other vehicles with the same problem.

    8. Does she wear a ring? I suspect the other commenter about parking in uv was correct but a ring would explain the scratches on the metal over time

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