My car's shifter nob will not move into D or R it will just stay in parking the shifte is stuck any ideas??

Question

I parked my car when i went to the store and i came back with the surprise of my car not shifting to reverse or drive. The shifting nob i cant move it i applied the brake, moved the steering wheel, i moved the car (shook it) and toggled with the shifter to see if it would move. I have a c-230 Kompressor year 2000 and this has never happend any ideas i know if i take it to the dealer they'll rip my head off with the price they'll throw at me Does anyone have any idea what it could be?? so i know what may have happend??

Answer 1

had this problem with a 98 oldsmobile and we had to buy a new shifter assembly fromt he dealer for about 150 bucks, we replaced it ourselves

fixed it

no more problem getting it out of park


was worn out, even with only 70k miles on it

it also has the brake safety interlock system

these newer cars have all kinds of crazy gadgets to go bad, i try to stick with older cars, this same car also had to have the instrument cluster repaired for 220 bucks because the anti theft module inside of it was faulty and the car would not start and run


good luck

Answer 2

get a repair manual from it and learn to fix your own car.
Good possibilities (things that may not be a major major problem)
-broken shifter cable
-bad solenoid (some cars have a solenoid that locks the shifter in each gear, so it won't pop out by mistake. Mine does) If it goes bad, the shifter might not move.
Bad possibilities (if it's one of these it'll probably cost you a lot to fix)
- problem in transmission.

I think it's most likely it's just the solenoid or cable. Others have also suggested the safety switch that senses if the brake is applied. That's also a possibility, and that would be real easy to test (just find the two wires that go to that switch and short them out. That should cause the solenoid to unlock and allow you to switch gears.

good luck.

Answer 3

look on the bottom part of the knob and there will most likely be 2 or 3 phillips head screws..take them off and carefully lift if up a little bit and try to get it in geer that way and when u find a good position put the screws back in (it wont work if u have overdrive controls on ur shifter but this happened to me once and it was pretty easy to fix..) another suggestion is maybe its torque lock and that would mean just pull ur ebreak and rock ur car again and try it then (im sure u already tried but i thought id put it anyways :) ) goodluck

Answer 4

Listen to Digory. He seems to know what he's on about. And I wouldn't try unscrewing anything, or the dealer will blame you for the problem and double your bill. Take it to a regular garage - unless it needs a tranny rebuild, these guys should do decent work for a decent price.

Answer 5

you probable p.c. a sparkling transmission, or you've got a topic like we did on an older motor vehicle, as quickly as we positioned the vehicle intocontinual then it incredibly did no longer take a seat amazing on the D, you may truthfully have a flat spot interior the tranny, you may additionally be low on tranny fluid, in all situations you may desire to get your transmission checked, via fact changing a transmission is very severe priced.

Answer 6

well your car has a safty switch that will not let you apply your car into gear unless the brake is applied so that switch mite be bad call your local auto repair shop in your yellow pages for a free estaimate

Answer 7

Why do you want to give the impression that you're spending "big bucks" on a car, when in reality you obviously can't even afford the maintenance on it? Seriously, leave the German cars to the people that can afford their problems.

Answer 8

if you have to step on the brake to move it . posible fault might be a switch in that area of sys. disconnected or not working .

Answer 9

Broken linkage or shifter cable!

Answer 10

Check your batteries first. And your brake oils.