hard to varying degrees to get my car out of park--

When I first start my meev up... its been getting progressively harder to get the car out of park and into drive... Once I've driven a while if I stop and turn off the car and later restart it it is not too bad.

Anyone else have that problem? Any suggestions on what it could be?

B

Ben, first some questions about your parking habits: do you first set the hand brake and then engage Park, or do you simply put it into Park first? Do you always keep your foot on the brake when engaging Park? Does the problem occur on the flat as well as on slopes? Has it always been this way or is it deteriorating with time? When you say "harder", I take it you mean physical force is needed to move the 'shift' lever out of Park? What about Park engagement force?

JoeS said:

Ben, first some questions about your parking habits: do you first set the hand brake and then engage Park, or do you simply put it into Park first? Do you always keep your foot on the brake when engaging Park? Does the problem occur on the flat as well as on slopes? Has it always been this way or is it deteriorating with time? When you say "harder", I take it you mean physical force is needed to move the 'shift' lever out of Park? What about Park engagement force?

Click to expand...

...about 1/2 the time use the hand brake...
... about 1/2 the time foot is on the brake when I turn the car off...
...both now...
...noticed it after getting it from service for my air bag sensor and (larger unit in additon simple sensor)
along with smell of solvent-like fumes in my car
...at times seems more consistent.... definitely takes significant force or moving of shifter right/left very very firmly
to get it after several tries and even restarting the car to get it out of park...

dreading driving into service 5 hours away...

There are several cable interlocks on the gear shift lever. There are cables from the key switch to the lever and from the gearbox. Don't know which one they disturbed, but you could remove the clips and pull the plastic cover up around the lever to inspect if cables are crossed and binding.

I'd be willing to bet it's the cable to the key switch from the shift console, judging by the work you had done. I would try following the cable from where it is exposed coming down the steering column see if it is out of place, kinked a bit, or caught under something that doesn't look right. Same inspection of the cable to the brake pedal. If one end of either cable were dislodged from it's proper seat it would make the casing longer and the cable (for all intents and purposes) shorter. There isn't much wiggle room in the length or adjustment of these cables. When I had the shifter column skins off, I thought that is a design asking to have a problem! Sometimes a cable like these can be reseated with a nice straight firm, but gentle pull on the housing near both ends allowing the cable housing end to drop back into it's seat fully. Likely the reverse is how it got out of whack to begin with.

Mechanics should be required to demonstrate finesse in oder to get certified!

Aerowhatt

cable diagram

Thanks all for the advice... The questions about how I parked and such proved to be where the problem lay. I'm pretty embarrassed to say changing how I parked and stopped, affected getting the car out of park when I started the car. I don't remember having the problem before getting the car serviced, but definitely, if I park, putting on the hand brake before taking my foot off of the foot brake, placing the car in park and turning off the key, I don't seem to have any trouble getting the car out of park later..

May be I simply picked up a bad habit after servicing. Good news is Gregg is driving trouble free.

BenBrown, thank you very much for following up and glad to hear how simple the 'fix' is. Your post did spawn a nice graphic (thank you, kiev), and this 'topic' will be a useful reference in the future for anyone having similar problems.