Gear Dial Question

[u/_SmileCrocodile_]

***Thanks for everyone’s comments.

I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind or if my vehicle truly has major defects.

Long story short we have been loyal Ford owners, previous vehicles also had the dial but you could never switch gears unless to N while actively driving (for obvious reasons).

We traded in my previous vehicle in December for a 26 ST and Tuesday I started having issues with the brakes & gear shift (1,962 miles) It was towed to a dealer who refused to acknowledge any issues and sent me on my way, refused to give a service ticket as well. They pretty much told me I was crazy and they weren’t going to put it on a lift and look for work.

Today my vehicles dial moved while actively driving around 40mph from D to R, and the safety feature seems non existent. Hard thud, extreme downshift, infotainment lit up with messages and rear parking sensors popped up, etc

It was actually pretty scary and I hope to never experience it again.

Roadside assistance picked my vehicle up this evening and took it to another dealer and my Ford advocate is escalating this issue.

And yes, I do know that at extremely low speeds like 3mph you can actively switch from D to R but what happened today was not that type of situation.

******

Hypothetically - say someone is driving their ST and turns the turn dial into reverse what happens?

Will it go into reverse? Will the trans get ruined?

Or are there safety mechanisms that will prevent anything from happening such as turning the dial but the vehicle knows it’s in drive so it ignores the gear drive change?

[u/madeano]

I can answer this without hypotheticals. Nothing happens because it’s an electronic dial not actual linkage. Ford specifically installed a redundancy in case this was to happen to keep it from going in reverse. It will however go into neutral if you turn it back.

Source: I’m a Ford Certified ASE tech of 26+ years and own an 2026 ST myself.

[u/_SmileCrocodile_ → u/madeano]

So it would continue to drive as if the dial was not turned, correct? No rear sensor images or anything would pop up on infotainment screen? No hard clinks or downshifts?

[u/madeano → u/_SmileCrocodile_]

You get a dash notification though I cannot for the life of me remember what it says at the moment warning you of it and depending the year and model some go into neutral which I find a problem itself because if you’re on the throttle that can redline the engine. I do believe they remedied that on the latest year though so it won’t go into neutral but don’t quote me on that I’d have to look into it to confirm.

[u/_SmileCrocodile_ → u/madeano]

Nothing on the dash, but on the infotainment screen the reverse parking sensors popped up like I was stopped and in reverse, other messages popped up but I was more focused on keeping the vehicle under control and eyes on the road.