Any ideas? 2004 Cayenne Turbo not shifting at all?

[deepraver]

All you great mechanics and experts out there I need help... I pulled into the driveway and everything was fine. Went to go somewhere the next day, engine starts fine, moved shifter into reverse to back out and no shift, still in park.. try drive, no drive, try manual/tiptronic no love.. wtf?? The shifter seems to move lighter than before could something in there have broken? I'm thinking if I can't fix I need a mechanic to come to me. Without neutral we can't tow right? .... *sigh* Last thing I need right now is a big bill.. any help/advice/thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

- Andrew

[hahnmgh63]

If your feeling the shifter being light then it could very well be in the shifter mechanism. Otherwise I would say run the codes first and if everything is fine then also have the fluid level checked in the tranny, the tranny will act like that if the fluid level is real low but it seems like it would be difficult for it to get that low without you noticing a change in the shifting.

[wvicary]

Follow the instructions in the owners manual about removing the upper shifter cover to gain access to the shifter interlock mechanism. That should at least give you line of sight to see if the shifter cable has broken at the upper connection, then inspect the connection at the gearbox. Apply the parking brake as a safety measure.

[GOB]

Find one of my posts where I had a similar problem except I got stuck in "D". At the end of the day, it turned out to be the cable that connects the shifter to the transmission. It was a couple of hundred bucks at the dealer to fix.

Soon after the repair, my airbag light turned on. In my research, apparently this is a common occurrence when messing around with the shifter. The dealer refuses to accept responsibility for this and now I am stuck with an airbag light permanently on and the dealer says that to fix it I must replace the driver's side curtain airbag....