Jammed gear selector, intermittent.

[996max]

Hello

New guy on the block here, have a 2002, 996, coupe with triptronic and approx 70K miles.

At times I have a problem getting the gearshifter to move from park.

Have done all the right sequences, i.e foot on brake pedal, seat belt on, key turned on in ignition, etc.

Even have P car owners with me and wittnessed this occurance, which leaves me vindicated that I did it right, but I would like to find a solution.

After a few tries the problem disappears and everything is fine again.

Loren came to my rescue, and suggested that "Sometimes the magnet on the selector lever comes loose and can jam against the housing"

Anybody can help me out, and how do I get to the magnet??

Thanks in advance for any suggestions and tips as to how to fix this.

Max

[larez2]

one other thing it could be is your parking brake. If you don't use your parking brake and park on an incline, somehow pressure gets put on the shifter making it harder to shift out of park.

in other words, when you park after putting it in P, if you don't use your parking brake and the car rolls forward or backward a little bit on an incline while still in park, it's hard to shift out of park once you want to get going again.

[996max]

one other thing it could be is your parking brake. If you don't use your parking brake and park on an incline, somehow pressure gets put on the shifter making it harder to shift out of park.

in other words, when you park after putting it in P, if you don't use your parking brake and the car rolls forward or backward a little bit on an incline while still in park, it's hard to shift out of park once you want to get going again.

Update: Thanks larez2 for your reply.

Spoke with previous owner, there was a issue with the brake switch in the past, did not make good contact, and was resolved by cleaning of the switch.

My guess was to revisit the brake switch again, since this was a relative easy task to preform, just reach up, turn the housing a quarter turn, drop switch and remove electrical plug, just mark what side of the plug goes where, in order to reassemble.

The switch can be stripped down, by opening the housing, lift up tabs.

The contacts can be pulled out individual (2) and one double set, do not lose the spring.

Clean the contacts with fine grid sandpaper, and place a little dieelectric grease back in the unit.

Reassemble, hook up plug and rotate quarter turn into housing above the pedal.

Now everything works like it should, still going to buy a back up brake switch ($18) at the dealer, and place it in the glovebox, cheap insurance.

This could leave you potentially stranded, and just think of the use this switch gets over the years.

Hope this helps all DIY, it sure puts a smile on my face.

Max