Hi from Kentucky. I found your great site last week when I was presented with a problem with my mom's 1996 Accord EX. The shifter locked in park every time she parked somewhere. Being 85 years old and not tech savy, she was lucky that it happened in my driveway. I read her owners manual and found that the key slot in the console allowed you to unlock the shifter and she was ready to go. Further reading on the manual, there was no mention of why it locked, just a casual statement that she should take it to her Honda dealer, since there may be a problem.

Upon arriving home, my mom called me to say that she wanted me to take the car to the dealer to have it checked out and that she was not driving it again until it was fixed. Well the dealer is 50 miles away and I have better things to do, so I checked out the net and found your site and the underlying problem.

It must be some kind of law in Japan that they have to warn the drivers of a break light problem, and in their infinite wisdom they decided to do it by keeping you from moving the shifter out of park, (and not saying that in the owners manual). Well, your site told me that if the shifter locked up, there was a problem with, #1 the fuse under the hood (#31), #2 the break light switch, or #3 the solinoid at the shifter that locks it in park...Or(of course any wiring problem in between). And , by the way, if the horn blows, it's not the fuse, (on the same circuit).

Well, I went to my mom's house with tools in hand, to fix this problem. I blew the horn and ruled out the fuse. I checked the break lights and they worked fine, so now I have to remove the console and replace the solinoid that's physically locking the shifter.....And then it hit me....

Who cares if it is made to work like when it was new. All I want to do is keep it from locking up so my poor 85 year old mom will get off my back about taking it to the dealer, (and drive it again). So, I played with the key in the slot awhile and determined that I needed to push it down about 1 1/2" to disingage the lock. The place that you insert the key is dished out and the slot is about an 1/8th" wide, so I found a 1/2" washer and a sheet metal screw slightly wider than the slot width and cut a piece of coathanger wire the depth of the key incertion and SCREWED IT DOWN.

Wahla......fixed, permanently. I appreciate this forum for all of the information that I got for this problem (including where to find the seven screws to remove the shift console), so I thought that on my first post I would share my quick fix for this problem.....maybe it will help the next person save a trip to the dealer.

 

Good post for all the members to read up on..Thank You for posting it for us...

 

what happens when you try to put the car in park and leave it in park ???

 

Well I'm sure the 'fix' worked, however you have bypassed a SAFTEY feature.
Now the car can be taken out of and pushed into park without stepping on the brake.
so you need to be sure to instruct mom to hold the brake pedal firmly when shifting into and out of park.

 

deserthonda......the gearshift still locks in park as it always did. You just press the shifter thumb button to release or lock it.

hondadude.....you're right. A safety feature has been removed, and you can push the thumb button and put it in gear whithout pressing the brake peddle......however, therre are millions of vehicles being driven every day in this country without this safety feature. I don't think mom will ever miss it......matter of fact, she didn't even know she had it...lol.

 

No, there's a law in the USA, that says you can't shift OUT of PARK unless you're standing on the brake. It's only convenient to use the brakelamp circuit.

This was done after a couple kids drowned. The driver left it running, got out for a second, & it slipped itself into Drive. The car idled itself down into a lake while the kids were strapped in.

 

"It shifted itself into drive", I doubt that. So because some woman left her small children unsupervised in a running car, the rest of the country's citizens have to pay more money for a safety feature and driving inconvience that they do not need. How can you even begin to defend that?

 

Cars and all kinds of other consumer items are just filled with expensive and inexpensive safety features to protect us from ourselves. Been that way for years & years. I'm not defending that - I feel kinda the same way. I'm just saying that US-DOT requires that system. Back in the day there wasn't always a thumb-button-lock either.

Well-maintained cars back then probably didn't slip into Drive by themselves. But who know what kind of mechanical condition that particular car was in. All I remember reading was the news item & we know how accurate they can be about engineering details.

BTW, WELCOME to HAF.