I was abruptly awakened this morning by my wife who says that the car will not shift out of park. I leave my cozy 70* home to head outside to the 6* garage. I get in the car which is running but not completely warm, hit the brake, push the button and PULL! I got it to budge just a little bit, but not out of park. I disassemble the center console to see if anythings wrong, I don't notice anything but now the button wont push. It would only push if I pushed the shifter forward.

So I give it a really good yank and SLOWLY and PAINFULLY get it into 1st. Then I try to push it into park and it'* not going anywhere. The shifter will push up to about the N position, but the gear indicator shows 2. So I got under the hood and pushed on the shift lever on the trans while my wife tried to shift it. It wasn't budging.

Now it'* sitting in 2nd in my garage and my wife had to get a ride to work. What the hell happened? There were no indications that this was going to happen. I don't think the problem is with the shifter or linkage, but with the trans; although I'm sure the linkage is broken now.

Sounds to me that the little white lever on teh passenger side of the assembly was sticky. Not sure what damage you did by yanking etc, but try that little lever and if that'* no good, you might need to replace the shifter.

Are you talking about the park release? I made sure to push that down just in case.

The thing is, the transmission is stuck in 2nd gear and I can push the shifter up to about Neutral but the transmission won't shift out of 2nd, according to the cluster indicator. So I'm pretty sure that the problem is with the transmission and not with the shifter.

and now the shift linkage is broken

The shifter moves freely through all gears but the trans isn't leaving 2nd. That'* just great

My first thought was a stuck cable. Unhook the shift cable and move the shift lever on the trans by hand. If it moves then start looking at the cable. With all your yanking you may have snapped the cable.

Yup, that'll do it. Just as soon as I pushed the connector through the holding bracket, it came right out.

This is so frustrating. This is our only car right now since I took the TGP down for the winter, and I do not want to resurrect it. I also cannot simply pull the shifter cable through the firewall, it'* snagged up on something. It'* already down to 15* outside and I'm done working on it tonight.

Never breaks when it'* 75* and sunny.

FWIW, keep the rest of that cable. It'* the best snake for running wires.

Got a cable sitting here all boxed up and ready to fly... Don't have an address.

Gimme a call back

Who is this crazy man leaving voicemail on my phone!?