Honda Civic transmission problem...

[Chuck Wintle]

my 2000 honda civic with automatic transmission, sometimes, is very difficult to shift out of park and back. Once the shift lever has been wiggled. forced from park into drive and if the car is driven it seems ok. For whatever reason it just becomes hard to move the lever out of park. moving the lever fro drive to reverse or reverse to drive is not a problem. any ideas? :D

[John M Wilson]

Does this only happen when the car is parked on an incline, or does it happen when you are parked on a level spot?

If this only happens on an incline, the problem is probably in the system known as the "parking pawl", which is the mechanical thing that "locks" the transmission when you put it in park. This can be helped with a faithful use of the parking brake (when you come to your final stop, firmly engage the parking brake prior to letting your foot off the main brake pedal). This will keep the parking pawl from holding the entire weight of the car & should make it easier to shift.

I'm not sure about the repair procedure for a worn parking pawl, but I would hope that it wouldn't require a transmission swap out. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of shops that do any real transmission work anymore, most simply opt for swapping out your tranny for a rebuilt unit, and then sending yours back to a third party rebuilder.

Hope it's something simple...

[Dan Hintz]

Man, quite a few car questions in this forum lately...

John's suggestion was my first thought. A second possibility is the plastic surround under the shifter... those break from time to time, making shifting difficult. With enough repeated force, it breaks entirely and the shifter will wiggle around a bit. You'd have to take the center console cover off to check it.

[Bob Turkovich]

Let me add a couple more:

If the problem occurs on the first shift of the day (or after the car has been sitting for a few days) but not on the 2nd or later shift of the day, you may have a shift cable issue. In this case, water has likely entered the cable causing corrosion and when it has a chance to sit for a while (yes, overnight can do it), the cable could seize and needs to be replaced. ( I don't believe the 2000 Honda was electronic shift-by-wire.)

It could also be the igntion interlock system. Interlock was added in the 90's and does two things. First, it keeps you from shifting out of park without the key in the ignition and in the "on" position (prevents a kid from crawling into the car and bumping it out of park). Second, it prevents the operator from taking the keys out of the ignition and walking away with the shifter not in park ( a "rollaway"). This feature was mandated by US federal law. Around 2000, brake interlock started being added to most vehicles which prevents the operator from shifting out of park unless the brake pedal is depressed. Could be that either system is broken or - more likely - out of adjustment. In either case, repairs should be performed by a trained mechanic.

My guess is that it's either the pawl or the interlock system.

[Dan Hintz]

Second, it prevents the operator from taking the keys out of the ignition and walking away with the shifter not in park ( a "rollaway").
<chuckle> Try telling that to my wife's old Saturn (2005?). Surprised the you know what out of her when the keys fell out of the ignition (bumped them with her knee) while she was tooling down the highway.

I was glad to replace that vehicle for her, but I'll never tell her that ;)

[Jeff Monson]

Sounds to me like a problem in the shifter cable, most likely it has stretched some and is bound up when shifting out of park and it binds back up when shifting into park. There is an adjustment that can be made to this cable that should take care of it.

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[Bob Turkovich]

Yeah, Jeff's absolutely right. A mis-adjusted (or stretched) shift cable could cause this problem as well.

Dan - IIRC, the Federal Safety Standard for the interlock required demonstrating 100% compliance before the vehicle could leave the plant. Did the vehicle get serviced at sometime where the ignition or shifter was touched? I did a quick google search and this doesn't seem to be a prevalent issue with Saturn.

BTW -you did have it fixed before you sold it, didn't you (or at least told the dealer if you traded it in.)? ;)

[Dan Hintz]

Dan - IIRC, the Federal Safety Standard for the interlock required demonstrating 100% compliance before the vehicle could leave the plant. Did the vehicle get serviced at sometime where the ignition or shifter was touched? I did a quick google search and this doesn't seem to be a prevalent issue with Saturn.

BTW -you did have it fixed before you sold it, didn't you (or at least told the dealer if you traded it in.)? ;)
I don't believe it was a common issue, just one with hers... she's lucky that way. Traded it in when I picked up my 370Z... I think they paid me $1,200 for it (was surprised to get that), and I got the impression it was going to go to auction immediately after. CEL light was on (pulled the code, looked like a bad O2 sensor), it chugged a bit, but it was running at the time. Happy to dump it.

[Phil Thien]

This is like Car-Talk week on SMC.

I sure hope we find out what the problem was from Chuck. Kinda like our own "Stump the Chumps."