My 2002 has 60k miles, shifts very well (normally). The other night in a parking garage I was having to shift the car from drive/reverse back and forth several times because of a tight parking situation.

All of a sudden the car wouldn't go back into reverse... was stuck in drive... was pushing very hard but wouldnt go. Once I inched the car up in drive a little, it went into reverse. This happened twice.

Car has been shifting fine since then, but it really bothered me that the shift was stuck in drive.

 

are you shifting while the car is still moving or a complete stop?

 

Stopped. I've never had this issue before, it was weird that I had to roll the car forward a little bit more, then stop again, in order to get the shift to go into reverse.

 

strange... was the tranny fluid cold & what is the condition of the fluid like?

I mean I had a little trouble once but my car was parked uphill & it was frigid outside. But I didn't have to nudge the car forward, just gave it a little force but it wasn't completely stuck, just stiff

 

Was the parking garage slanted? Because if so, that can put pressure on the shifter. It won't make it impossible to shift, but just difficult. If you use your parking brake, that relieves the stress on the shifter. But, if you didn't have your parking brake on and the garage had an incline, then that could possibly do it.

 

yup

 

Just an update... after doing research on here and elsewhere on the web, I found out this is typically a shiftlock problem due to a failing brake light switch (stop lamp switch) or a failing blue relay beneath the shift.

My brake light switch is failing... it took me a few minutes in my driveway, but I got the shifter to start acting up again and confirmed that my brake lights were not coming on with my foot on the brake... so shiftlock was enabled. Need to get a new switch for about $30.

More info:

https://maxima.org/forums/5th-genera...ndom-help.html