Gear Lever Sticks In Neutral

[Summerbj]

I have aproblem on my 1998 GS300 MkII when moving gear selection lever from Drive to Park. I often find that it will not pass beyond Neutral and have to use the Shift Lock Overide button to free it. This occurs even when I have the Brake pedal depressed. I can hear a click when I apply the brake pedal when the lever is in Park and the movement through the gears right down to L is no problem. Movement from L back to Neutral is also problem free and then it gets stuck in Neutral again. Although the vehicle drives fine, it's a bit infuriating. Any suggestions.

[NickF]

There is a mechanism which stops you moving the selector past the neutral position into reverse or park whilst the car is moving forward at any speed, whether the brake pedal is pressed or not. On my GS I noticed that if I came to a stop quickly from high speed and tried to shift into Park immediately, the selector wouldn't go past Neutral, in exactly the same way as if I hadn't pressed the brake pedal.

Maybe this has something to do with your problem. It took me a while to work out what was going on - I thought that it was just an intermittent fault at first, as non of my other automatic cars have done it.

I don't know what signal triggers this behaviour, but it could be this that is malfunctioning causing you not to be able to select Reverse or Park from Neutral.

I'm sure Colin will have a few ideas on what it could be.

[ColinBarber]

Sounds like a mechanical problem rather than electrical - the brake pedal doesn't need to be pressed to shift from R to P. Possibly dirt stopping the mechanism from moving correctly which is causing it to jam.

Worth trying to lube the shift lock solenoid pin etc. if you can strip it down.