Guys,

my wife parked our 2000 stype, on the road. we live up a hill, and set the lever to park in a hurry, and shifter will not come off the park position.I told her to leave the car, and dropped her off at her office.I tried considerable force to move to R or N but it will not come off. Before been stuck with a broken shifter i ddi the following to bring back the shifter out.
1.Pull up from the front, both sides of the ashtray to dislodge the center console.
2.Removed the shifter knob.
3.removed battery negative
4.Pull the park brake up and pull the upper ctr consle and place ascrew driver in the front to hold it in up position.remove lighter, sport sw and DSC swith connectors.
5. Now you will see the monkey motion of the linkages.
6. get some one to press the brake and ignition on( at this stage you will have to put that batt connector back),try moving the shifter to N direction and pry the cable to move in.Alas! you will notice shifter will move.Hope this info will be usefull.
Good luck

 

In the pre-2003 S-Types, there is a plastic pin that tends to break off in the shifter unit. When that happens, nothing will move. Ken Karr at britishparts.com sells a metal replacement pin that supposedly fixes this problem once and for all. He's in Houston, Texas. You can reach him at (800) 338-5238, ext. 626.

 

This happened to me in my X-type. It may not be the same issue in the S-type, but it's worth a try.

With the car running, put your ear to the shifter with the car in park. Press on the brakes. Do you hear a "click" inside the shifter when you press on the brakes. It may be faint, but there is an electrical latch in there, that mechanically moves and releases the J gate when the brakes are pressed.

You can also take the J gate apart, it's steel, and you can move the little lever by hand. Once you have the console wood out, and the shift knob off, as well as the little flared nut under the shift know, you can pull the top of the cover off it's 4 torx screws and the top cover of the J gate comes of. It will be obvious once the lockout is visible if it's working or not, but you can usually hear it.

What I did in my X-type temporarily was jump power from the cig lighter directly to that solenoid, and when the key was on it would release the lockout.

George

 

This has happened to me when parkingon a incline as well (even a slight one) happened twice...but basically you need someone in the car trying to switch gears while someone else is rocking the car back and forth.

The first time it happened to me I thought something was wrong with my transmission. Mechanic told me to sit in the car put my foot down on the brake and try to put it in reverse as he rocked the car back and forth, no more than a minute or so later while he was rocking it I was able to switch gears. You have to remember to put the parking break on first with these vehicle when parking on ANY incline. I learned that the hard way.

 

Know you know why the 03 and up S Type has the automatic electric parking brake......

 

Doesn't ours set once we go into park? OR with the key off? I don't think it sets in drive, at a stop, before you go into park, so that kind of defies the whole logic of the parking brake setting itself automatically.

George

 

The electronic parking brake is designed to engage once the shifter is placed into Park. When you shift into Drive or Reverse, it is designed to automatically release. I assume that it also releases when you shift into Neutral.

 

Right but if parking on an incline places an undue load on the park gear, which requires someone to physically rock the car back and forth in order to get the car out of park again, wouldn't the solution be to set the parking brake BEFORE, going into park, to put the load on the brakes? Or prevent the park gear from loading?

That seems to be what the original poster was stating, as far as set the park brake before u go into park on an incline, otherwise you might get into this jam.

George

 

Based on all the problems with this issue I've seen here on this forum, I think the best approach is this: If you have a pre-2003 S-Type, DO NOT park on an incline....

 

The EPB (elec park brake) auto-sets on key out of ignition, not as soon as you go into Park.

 

Correct, and the proper procedure for parking the car.....I don't believe I'm actually saying this..... is to just keep your foot on the brake pedal after you've parked and turned the car off. This is how I've always parked an automatic equipped car and I have always applied a parking brake on an incline. Never have had the parking pin bind on any car. My driveway is at a incline and I never have a problem. I actually like the auto brake feature....Except when doing a brake job.

 

It's easy enough to release it by holding down the release while turning off the car. Unless you're messing with the calipers, (beyond a pad and rotor swap) it shouldn't affect anything. I actually like the fact that the car uses the real rear brakes as far as a parking brake.

What troubles me is how do you use this electronic parking brake as an emergency brake - can you modulate pressure to prevent lockup with that little lever switch in the center console - I dont think so!! You lose brakes for whatever reason pulling the e-brake may not be the best option - full lock of the rear wheels with no control.

George

 

I agree - the electronic park brake system should not be considered as an emergency brake. As I've said before, I'd prefer not to have the electronic park brake system in our car. Just another electrical component that decides to fail and costs significant money to repair down the road....

 

If you haven't used the park-brake on the hill and just relied on the park "pawl" in the gearbox, its likely to jam the pawl as soon as you take your foot off the brake and get out of the car to go about your business. When you get back, you can't shift the gear lever out of park because the car has rolled back a tiny amount, putting quite a force on that pawl, jamming it in the 'engaged' position. This force can be got rid of by jacking up one of the rear wheels, so releasing the force as the lifted wheel is freed. I should be sure the car can't roll away by chocking the three other wheels with bricks! If you've a helper inside to disengage the gearbox's parking pawl even better. Good thinking by not trying to force the gear lever by the way.
Leedsman.

 

George & Jon - please!! It works fine as an emergency brake. Read JTIS about it. It won't readily lock up the rear wheels, but read the details please. (What it does depends on speed, how you apply it etc.) Go out on a quiet road and actually try it. That's got to be a good idea as you might actually need it one day!

Oh, and bear in mind the speedo isn't accurate especially at low speeds. (Tends to read higher than true speed.)

 

It is also mentioned in the owners manual as well. pg127

 

No way am I going to go out and pull that electronic park brake just for the hell of it while the car is at speed. Too many bad things can happen to that quirky system as opposed to good....

 

Cluck cluck cluck

 

Call me chicken all you want - I don't give a rat's ***. I value my checkbook a hell of a lot more than I value going out and doing something stupid with that EPB....