over-revving and smelly gas

[victor_t]

first question:

so today I had a little "incident" over-revving my engine.

I was trying to turn onto a busy street today (in montreal it's called the service road for the highway) so I was accelerating hard from a stop.
I was obviously in 1st gear and after a few meters I heard the engine rev high and when I looked it was between 6000 and 6500 RPM.
I immediately put the car in second gear and kept going. I didn't hear anything weird coming from the motor bay on the way home, no lights came up, no overheating.

I don't know why this happened. How fast must the car travel in order to reach the redline in first gear?

My clutch is not slipping and I don't think I was riding the clutch because when I did that before (twice, when I was learning stick, never after :) ) I had a horrible smell in my car. this time there was no smell.

the only things that I figure could have happened are #1 I was trying to change into second hear so I pushed the clutch in without letting off the gas, or #2 the transmission popped out of first gear.

Can the tranny pop out of first gear on hard acceleration? I have no issues otherwise with the transmission, no previous incidents.
I wasn't paying much attention to what I was going at the time, so I can't say for sure if I had already started changing to second gear when it happened.

since this was not a mis-shift, I assume it shouldn't damage the motor in any way, correct?


second question: when I got home (after about 30 minutes of bad traffic on the highway) I opened the hood and looked at the oil. it looks OK (was changed a month/1000km ago) but I noticed a very faint smell of gas from the dipstick. I opened the gas cap but there was no smell coming out of it.
is this normal? what does hot oil normally smell like? I've never smelled my oil before.

[condor888000]

6500RPM? That's not over-revving, thats redline, 7800-8000, that is over revving. Don't worry about it, your car will be fine.

If you have had no previous problems, I'd doubt your car hopped out of gear. Your second scenario seems more likely.

How old is the car?

[froggy]

6500RPM? That's not over-revving, thats redline, 7800-8000, that is over revving. Don't worry about it, your car will be fine.

If you have had no previous problems, I'd doubt your car hopped out of gear. Your second scenario seems more likely.

How old is the car?

agreed, as long as it's not bouncing off of the rev limiter and your there for extended periods of time like you were at a track day you're fine. my old vw and my motorcycle pretty much live at the redline 6.5K on the vw and 12K on the motorcycle and they are fine. I put 100k on my vw like that without a problem. The only way the car would overheat is again extended periods at high revs on a particularly hot day or you were stuck behind someone (again only likely in a track scenario).

for the gassy smell I don't know what to tell you I've also never smelled hot oil. If these were carburetered cars I'd say you were smelling the gas left in the bowl but with these cars I have no idea

[victor_t]

the car is 2 years old, 42000 km. it's a 2.0L engine.

I'll smell my dad's car oil and see if it smells the same. I have no idea what oil should smell like.

[thefish]

Sometimes your brain just conjures up weird smells when you think you did something bad.

At least, that used to happen to me...

[froggy]

Sometimes your brain just conjures up weird smells when you think you did something bad.

At least, that used to happen to me...

lol they say that happens to race car drivers when they are near the finish and are in the lead! they start to hear and smell all kinds of things from their car and just start hoping that it makes it over the finish

[victor_t]

I definitely did smell some gas after I got on the highway (a kilometer or so after the redline) but it went away fast

I just smelled my dad's oil and I get a stronger smell from the oil cap. it's a 2005 nissan altima. I smelled my dipstick again and there's no smell, but now with the engine cold I can smell the same thing on the oil cap.

I'll assume it's normal.

I have to admit that I am paranoid. my first car was an 11 year old hyundai with engine problems towards the end of the life and lots of other stuff (alternator cooking the battery so the whole car was filled with sulphuric acid etc). the second one was a 2002 nissan sentra that I just sold. there were no engine problems there but the suspension was bad (the streets here in montreal are full of huge potholes)

so any smell, any rattle kinda pisses me off. and every time I smell/hear something new I'm wondering what else just broke on the car.

[SomeGuy]

I find myself up over 6k a few times a week, nothing like a pull through second and third while getting on the highway...there is a rev limiter for the slip ups :) No need to worry.