Festiva Wont Shift Out Of Park

[Powerstiva]

HELP,
My Festiva is my daily driver and today i woke up and it wont shift out of park, its a 92' GL Auto. Anything to help would be very appericated.

[crazyrog17]

Check the ROOM fuse, it provides power to the shift interlock solenoid.

[htchbck]

If the room fuse is good, and the shifter won't move at all the next thing I'd check is if your brake lights are working. Just step on the pedal and see if you can see the reflection of the center light coming on in the back glass. If not, then the brake light switch has likely come unplugged. If you look under the dash and you will probably see a little white two-wire plug hanging near the plug on the brake pedal switch, about 6 inches about the pedal itself. If its unplugged, plugging it back in should fix your problem (and give you brake lights again!).

If the brake lights are working like they should then there may be a problem with the solenoid that locks the shifter in park, or the wiring going to it. Either way, a quick fix is to slide the little button at the top right corner of the shifter base either forward or backward (can't remember which way off the top of my head) and it will either move the emergency release, or break off. If it brakes off, just poke a screwdriver down there through the hole underneath it, and that should disengage the solenoid and you can shift it out of park. Then later you can figure out exactly what the problem was, or you can disable the solenoid if you don't have a habit of putting the car in gear without first putting your foot on the brake so it doesn't take off as soon as its in gear.

If neither of those fixes it, post back and we'll keep trying to help! Good luck!

[Damkid]

This type of thread belongs in the repair help section