Rick Moyer
12-22-2016, 4:56 PM
I need to share this handy bit of information.
I have a 2002 330I which my step-daughter had been needing to use lately. Anyway, the other day I moved it in our driveway and couldn't get the key back out of the ignition. A quick Google search indicated probably the shifter (automatic) not fully going forward into park, possibly caused by a coin in the linkage under the boot. I somewhat dismissed this as being too easy, but, I was wrong!
I put the emergency brake on, shifted to neutral (for clearance), yanked up hard on the shifter (it will pull right off), pried up the boot, and sure enough there was what appeared to be the edges of a quarter lodged in front of the assembly. A simple pick up tool with four fingers facilitated removing the quarter and everything reassembled and shifter/ignition working just fine!
There is an opening beneath the ashtray where something could fall into that area, so I suspect she removed the ashtray to dump it (even though I asked her not to smoke in my car!:mad:), and dropped a quarter in there. This apparently has happen to quite a few E46 model owners as there were instances of others having this issue. I don't know if it applies to other models. Hopefully this might help someone else.
I have a 2002 330I which my step-daughter had been needing to use lately. Anyway, the other day I moved it in our driveway and couldn't get the key back out of the ignition. A quick Google search indicated probably the shifter (automatic) not fully going forward into park, possibly caused by a coin in the linkage under the boot. I somewhat dismissed this as being too easy, but, I was wrong!
I put the emergency brake on, shifted to neutral (for clearance), yanked up hard on the shifter (it will pull right off), pried up the boot, and sure enough there was what appeared to be the edges of a quarter lodged in front of the assembly. A simple pick up tool with four fingers facilitated removing the quarter and everything reassembled and shifter/ignition working just fine!
There is an opening beneath the ashtray where something could fall into that area, so I suspect she removed the ashtray to dump it (even though I asked her not to smoke in my car!:mad:), and dropped a quarter in there. This apparently has happen to quite a few E46 model owners as there were instances of others having this issue. I don't know if it applies to other models. Hopefully this might help someone else.