2007 Chrysler Pacifica stuck in Park - Thank Goodness for Youtube

Joined
Mar 2, 2004
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Location
Kentucky
Wife and I went to go to the grocery store, can't get our '07 Pacifica out of Park. Luckily this happened in our driveway and not at the store. Diagnosis went like this:

Listen for shift lock solenoid - OK

Pull off cover to reveal manual shift lock override and attempt that - No change, shifter moves from park detent (verifying shift interlock working) but can't throw the shifter backward into reverse, it's stuck.

Open hood, have wife wiggle shifter (with brake depressed and vehicle power on), look at shift linkage - The shift linkage is OK, and metal bar/tab @ transmission is rocking back and forth while the wife wiggles shifter.

Get front wheels off the ground (FWD) in case the parking pawl is locked up. Rock wheels back and forth in same direction (with helper), while wife attempts shift into reverse. No change.

Get a hammer and prybar and give the metal bar @ transmission a little love tap while wife applies pressure toward reverse. No change.

Disconnect shift linkage and verify that I can manipulate gear selector by hand @ transmission. Car goes into every gear with moderate pressure, seems perfectly normal.

Solution? Throw in the towel and consult Youtube.

Evidently a tang on a 10 cent piece of plastic breaks off on these shifters (under the console) which loses a spring. Without the spring, the shift interlock appears to be working, the shifter will even leave the park detent, but you can't move backward into reverse, and the manual override is no help either.

The fix is to drill a hole in the plastic, and refit an appropriately sized spring. Project for tomorrow!
 
Most things seem to be simple fixes, amazing what you can find online. It seems most issues are common as well, so someone has posted about it.
 
Most things seem to be simple fixes, amazing what you can find online. It seems most issues are common as well, so someone has posted about it.
That's what I've found in my many years of car ownership-- if something on a car breaks (that's not lack of maintenance), it's usually a failure that's fairly common, and more than likely other people have experienced it with that model and post about it on forums/Youtube.

In my early years of driving it was a Chilton/Haynes manual was all you had, but it wasn't long before forums became a thing which was invaluable. And now everything seems to be moving to Youtube/videos. I prefer forums personally.

Not saying there aren't strange / errant failures that nobody has come across, but those are extremely rare in my experience.

The struggle is with older / low volume cars where there are few owners left. My buddy bought a '93 Jaguar early last year and he complains all the time that all the info / recent posts on forums are from mid 2000's and older, and naturally all the links and photos are broken...
 
That's what I've found in my many years of car ownership-- if something on a car breaks (that's not lack of maintenance), it's usually a failure that's fairly common, and more than likely other people have experienced it with that model and post about it on forums/Youtube.

In my early years of driving it was a Chilton/Haynes manual was all you had, but it wasn't long before forums became a thing which was invaluable. And now everything seems to be moving to Youtube/videos. I prefer forums personally.

Not saying there aren't strange / errant failures that nobody has come across, but those are extremely rare in my experience.

The struggle is with older / low volume cars where there are few owners left. My buddy bought a '93 Jaguar early last year and he complains all the time that all the info / recent posts on forums are from mid 2000's and older, and naturally all the links and photos are broken...
Good thing you don't subscribe to bitogs low opinion of YouTube 🙂
 
Dug into it today, and problem was exactly as the fella on Youtube described. A broken off spring retainer/tang.

Highlighted in yellow is where the original spring retainer broke off. I simply drilled a 1/16" hole on the back side of that pink plastic piece and installed a new spring.

The new spring (pictured) worked fine when testing the assembly out of the vehicle (using the override button for the brake pedal shift interlock), but once it was installed in the vehicle, it didn't have enough tension to overcome the ignition override (a separate cable) that keeps you from shifting when the ignition is off.

Had to pull it out again, and had other springs to try, but I ended up finding the original spring in the very bottom of the console (along with a lot of loose pocket change and expired coupons circa 2007). I stretched one leg of the spring a bit to fit the new hole I drilled and it works perfect now. Still have to put the console back together but the hard work is done.

Repair took a couple hours and cost nothing, zero complaints here.

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