link-to works in index.hbs but not in application.hbs - ember.js

Question

When I do a {{#link-to "cars/category" "mini"}} from index.hbs, everything works fine. I transition to cars/category -> templates/cars/category.hbs.
However, when I do the same from application.hbs (for navigation), I transition to an empty page and then automatically transition to the parent route cars.index -> templates/cars/index.hbs.
There is probably some logic to this. How can I transition to this route from a link click in application.hbs?
(a hard link <a href="/cars/mini" works fine, but I'll lose the state of the application.)
routes/cars/category.js model:
model(params) {
return this.store.findRecord('cars/category', params.category_id, {backgroundReload: false});
}
In route.js:
this.route('cars', () => {
this.route('cars/category', { path: '/cars/:category_id' });
});

Answer 1

For Ember 2.11
Have you try to change the route path to dot notation cars.category
A sample nested routes,
Router.map(function() {
this.route('photos', function(){
this.route('photo', { path: '/:photo_id' }, function(){
this.route('comments');
this.route('comment', { path: '/comments/:comment_id' });
});
});
});
A proper link-to helper link with multiple segements,
{{#link-to 'photo.comment' 5 primaryComment}}
Main Comment for the Next Photo
{{/link-to}}
You can read more at,
https://guides.emberjs.com/v2.5.0/templates/links/#toc_example-for-multiple-segments

Answer 2

For the below route.js
this.route('cars', function(){
this.route('category', { path: '/:category_id' });
});
You can do {{#link-to "cars.category" "mini"}}, this will transition to /cars/mini url.
You don't need to have cars/category. because it's already nested inside cars route.
Created Sample Twiddle .
For better understanding routing see AlexSpeller ember-diagonal

Answer 3

Someone suggested that since I transition to the desired page and then immediately transition to its parent, there must have been some other transition queued.
On further inspection, the link-to was indeed inside a drop down menu of a list-item which itself was a link-to too.
The solution was to add bubbles=false to the inner link-to.
The other answers here doubt the used routes. However, they are fine and setup like this for a reason. E.g. multiple routes with a subroute called category cannot all be in the root. However, it was my fault for not disclosing the exact code which put people on the wrong track, for they would probably have noticed the actual problem immediately.
Next time I will be more verbose in my code. I apologize, and thanks for thinking with me.