I have a 1995 GXE, when the car is park on the hill in P, it's almost impossible to slide it back down to any other gears(R, N, D, etc), I dont' know much about these tranny but it feels like the shifter/tranny solenoid (if there's such a thing) is getting locked up too tight. It's strange that everything seems normal when the car is level though, anybody experience this?? We barely drive this car so it only has 47K miles now, tranny fluid was replaced recently and it didn't help either, this sucks...

 

All the auto drivers have to learn to use the parking brake. Can I assume you do not use the parking brake?

Putting the shifter into P is not the way to "park your car"... you should also be setting the parking brake... the parking brake is incorrectly named the "emergency brake" - so people never bother to use it... the irony is, if you are going 50 and try to stop just using the "emergency" brake - you're in for a surprise.

That should fix your problem. Oh, btw, welcome to the org.

 

I ALWAYS use my parking brake or e-brake but I have also had the same problem of the stick almost getting jammed in park....you kinda have to fight with it just so you can get it to reverse or drive after it has been in park....

 

i just learned to live with it - sometimes i drive around for while to look for flat parking space

my e-brake been frozen since i bought the car and one day i need to drop the cat(when it fails) and install new brake cables.

Nick.

 

I use the e-brake every single time anyway but this has nothing to do with it though, it's a shifter or tranny issue, I can't pull the key out if it wasn't put in P, leave it in N and only use the e-brake is not an option here. I suppose I could let the dealer troubleshoot it but thought I ask some of you experienced folks and see if this is something that we can fix.

 

I have driven a stick all of my life. My fiance has a 01 xterra that is auto. We park it on the hill a lot and we have the same problem. As I have never experienced this before, I just figured it was normal for autos because so much weight is resting on the gears themselves. This also happens to the 2002 GMC 3500 dually we have.

 

Actually it may be related to the e-brake... when you do park on a hill, and pull on the e-brake, do you notice the car roll back at all when you release the brake pedal, first of all do you park in the following order:

1. Drive car into parking spot
2. Keeping foot on brake pedal - move gear selector to Park
3. Keeping foot on brake pedal - pull on e-brake
4. Release brake pedal - if you feel the car roll back at all, then your e-brake did not engage properly. The car should not roll back at all when you release the brake pedal.

Basically what is happening to all you guys that have trouble shifting after parking is the car rolls back and ends up leaning on the "parking pawl" in the transmission. This is a small pin that locks the gears - so they can't rotate. When the car leans back on this pin (when on an incline) you end up bending it slightly and have to counter the cars weight when trying to move out of P.

Even the slight incline of a driveway is enough to make shifting out of P difficult... like I said, engage the ebrake before releasing the brake pedal - if the car moves forward or backwards once the brake pedals is released your ebrake needs to be looked at.

 

Yeah...what he said ^^^ - I've lived on a VERY steep hill all my life (21 years) and have had atleast 15 people get "stuck" in my driveway. I just pull to where i want to stop,pul up on the e-brake hard, with the car in neutral and then either leave the car ingear if its a stick or slide to P if its an AUTO. If the car rolls back - you didnt pull the e-brake hard enough.