vett79

As the weather here in Ohio gets a little colder I've noticed that the shift **** button depresses but the lever won't release right away. After 3 or 4 times it will finally release and allow the lever to be moved out of Park. After the car warms up it works fine. Is the "lube" just cold? Any fix?

JH

Wow. That's a new one on me. Anybody else?
TTT

BTW, any chance that there is tooooo much grease from FRENCH FRIES in there and it is coagulating in the cold???

Hope you get an answer. I have an A4, too.

vett79

ttt

MyVetteDream

My first step would be to remove the **** and visually inspect it --

--- It's only a matter of pulling the giant staple out and having a look-see...

It might not be the ****. If you look on the release shaft (covered by the boot cover and ****)), there are two sections which surround it, if those get pressed together (onto the shaft) they will hinder the shafts movement (release/engage).

sneakelman

You're not alone. Mine does the same thing when it gets cold.

WildTurkey

Maybe thats the built in "Winter Storage Time" alert

Purerock105

Sometimes its the shifter-interlock solenoid. For some reason when cold weather suddenly comes upon the car, it fails. Or won't engage until warmer. I went ahead and removed the solenoid, therefore being able to take the car out of park without having to depress the brake pedal.

BobJ

I'd bet my bottom dollar it's the shift interlock solenoid, mine did the same thing. The good news......you don't need it. Just remove it.

vett79

Where's the solenoid and can I just disconnect it or does it have to be removed?

Purerock105

Its located to the left of the shifter in the housing underneath the shift
boot. The hard part is not the actual disconnect or removal, its gaining
access to the area. To access the shifter area you must remove the center
glove box which will encompass the plastic area around the shifter. This
becomes doubly hard because to remove it completely means getting it over
the shifter. When the shifter is in park there's not allot of room between
the stereo/AC area to get this done. Obviously you must remove the
top of the shifter/button(small U-hook facing the forward).

Once all that is out of the way you'll see the solenoid and a few twists
and wire disconnects and it's off. At that point you can move the
shifter at will and do so without placing a foot on the brake.

The solenoid is about 4-inches in length and looks like this...

BobJ

Yeah, what he said. It is a bit of a time consumer. Shop shouldn't charge you much more than an hour to do it (don't have my Mitchell 1 handy).

vett79

Thanks guys.........may be a good winter project.