help! emergency!
 

my girlfriend's 2000 celica gt will not shift out of park. the engine starts and will rev up. headlights, brake lights, pwr steering and radio work, but dashboard lights do not come on nor does the heat.

what really sucks is that shes about 4hrs away from home visiting a friend.

anyone have a clue what may be wrong? i have a feeling it might be a blown fuse.. but she is having problems removing the fuse for the dashboard.

Automatic transmission.... i'd check the cable linkage under the car... it should be visible, and even able to be moved by hand. Not a big deal... but may require a bit more light.

i gave her my aaa info so the car got towed to a local good year shop. sucks that i am also about 6 hours away so i cant check it out for myself. hopefully it all gets squared out tomorrow with no major fixes needed. thanks guys

I know on my old lexus there was a button next to the shifter that was located under a little plastic tab that you would pry off with a coin and works as a substitute for pushing in the brake pedal. Tell her to try that, chances are it has the same button seeing as our cars had the same transmission.

Yup. . . that's what happened to my mom.

Also see if there is an emergency release like FerrariFan said. . .

Sorry for the late response.

maby it is just a girl problem, step on the brake to shift from park.:huh:

I give her way more credit than that..

Talked to the guys at Good Year where the car is at.. unfortunately it just snowed in Syracuse and everyone was rushing to get their snow tires on. So no luck on getting the car checked out till Monday..

They said the car won't move at all and has to sit outside until after the weekend. Hope they can figure it out, cause its sort of out of our hands now. Will probably make a trip up there later this week..

I have a feeling it's going to be something pretty simple like a fuse or brake pedal switch. The pedal switch is what activates the shiftlock solenoid to prevent the car from being put into gear without your foot on the brake. If the switch went bad, or isn't getting power (which may come from the cluster) then the solenoid won't release. It's a stupidly simple mechanism so it shouldn't take too long to figure out.

Yeah, it was most likely something simple like that.

Car is getting driven back home, 250 miles from where it is now at Good Year. They said the car is working fine now, it starts, and shifts out of gear. No mention of what was wrong, but they ran diagnostics and say that the spark plugs and o2 sensors need to be changed, even though she just got those serviced a month ago. :mad:

They also mentioned that the battery was "nearly dead" and wondered how she even made it up to Syracuse. Unless they jumped it, which they didnt say the did, the battery surely would have died sitting outside in the cold. Either way, she's getting a new battery and her friend is driving it back home.

Hey DMF, sorry for the late reply, but I second Zfr. I think it was the safety solenoid that's activated by the brake pedal. When the power is low on a car, all sorts of crap happens...so if the mechanics were shocked the car even made it, because of the bad battery, it's very likely electrical gremlins from the low voltage...

Good to hear it's all together though...!