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Help! Grand Prix will not shift into Park.

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durell81

New member
I hope I am posting this into the right place. I have a 1999 Grand Prix GT that has a random issue. I can drive it sometimes and no issue and others times it will not go into park. It goes into all other gears just fine. The first time this happened my son was driving and he cut the car off with the transmission in reverse and the key stuck in the ignition. I was able to use the release switch under the steering column to release the key and once I did that the car went into Park with out a problem.

I don't think it is the transmission because I check the shift linkage cable and it moves freely plus I also removed the linkage cable and was able to shift the transmission.

I have searched and read a few post with people having issues with wires going to the shifter so I removed the top off of the shifter console and did not notice anything out of place with any wires. I am sort of stuck on what to troubleshoot next.

The last time it happened I was able to re press the brake and wiggle/force the shifter and it finally went into Park.
 


I have seen a few cars where the shifter itself gets worn and will bind or be difficult to move. Might be worth looking into.
 
Thanks Bill! I will look into that. Has anyone heard of the Shift Lock causing an Issue like this? When I google or search shift lock it mainly talks about people who are not able to shift out of Park.
 
my shiftier needed to be lubed up. the button was hard to push to get it out of park. spray lube and it came back to life.
 


Okay I just found this video from RareGMFan's post https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XBPL9v02WQ
I will take a look at this this weekend. To see if my issue is related to this. Hopefully it is something simple like this. Gotta love GM things may break but sometimes they are easy to fix. I will report back what I find out later this week.
 


When it works it slides in like butter but when it doesn't it feels like is hitting something to prevent it from going forward. I have never tried this but I am assuming that a GP will not let you shift from drive to Reverse or Park unless your foot is on the break to prevent damage to the transmission. This is just me thinking out loud. I will have to play closer attention to the shifter button also to see if it can be pressed in when I am experiencing this problem. I can't remember if that was a problem or not.
 
Ok I think I figured out my issue. I noticed that if I wiggled the shifter from side to side and pressed it hard into gear it would go in Park and start working fine. After watching that video I noticed that the button on the gear shift has to push in a rod to release the shifter and allow it to move. I think my issue was the pin that holds the shifter knob with the button on it start to pull up and the button was not pressing in on the rod to allow the shifter to move.

So I pushed the shifter knob all the way down on the shifter and made sure the pin that holds it in place was all the way in. I will keep an eye on this to see if my issue is completely resolved or not.
 


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