Last night I pulled in from work and the transmission had a real hard time shifting into park. It went with a little bit of force and the car parked fine. This morning woke up, car started and shifted fine with no problem, went to store came out and now the car wont start. It seems like the shifter will not fully go into park and the car rolled forward into the concrete parking stop on the ground.

When I try to start the car it goes to the ignition position but there is nothing. Car doesnt try to start at all. Lights work, radio works but car wont start. The brake pedal is real hard to depress and the shifter does not want to go fully into park and only goes into reverse and nuetral. Also the shifter position does not seem to correlate with what reads on the dash. Car wont shift into park at all.

Any idea what it is? I looked up some stuff and sounds like maybe a nuetral safety switch or range sensor? Maybe a cable? Someone said to look at the fuses but Im not with the car now and needed a ride to work.

Any ideas? I need this fixed by tommorow!!!

Thanks

Btw car is 2000 monte carlo 3.4 160k miles. Car runs fine and transmission/shifter worked fine before this. No slipping etc.

 

Can you start the car in N?

 

my brother had the same problem with one of his Grand Prixs and it was a nuetral safety switch, he either had to keep shifting back and fourth until it went into park or try and start it in nuetral.

 

Ok thanks guys. Ill try the nuetral safety switch first. Hopefully thats the cause. Im not with the car now so I can say if it will start in nuetral. Does anyone know where the neutral safety switch is? On the tranny?

 

I had an older Jetta with a similar problem. When I took the console from around the shifter I could see the mechanicals. There were copper leads that ran parallel to the shift track. I would put the Jetta in 'N' and cross the copper leads where the 'P' would have been if it were in park. This would allow the car to start. Good luck! I know... It's not a fix, but it's the best that I could do.

 

it is a good thing to go after the nutral safty switch first the voyager that i had the shifter part of the trans it self went hay wire. wat i mean is the peace that shifts the trans it self it broke from the trans it is the thing that sits on top of the trans that the cable sits on to shift the trans it was expencive to fix but i would go to the safty switch first. because i went threw a whole lot with that van pluse it was a pos

 

are you parking on an incline? if so, after you put it in park put the E brake on which will make it 100% easier to shift out of park