Asked by latinotom Aug 05, 2017 at 11:52 PM about the 2009 Chevrolet Impala LS FWD
Question type: Maintenance & Repair
Drove to work, parked car, came out to go to lunch and car would not move
from
park.
5 Answers
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I believe GM puts an electrical switch that will only allow the gear shift to move from park when the ignition switch is on and the brake pedal depressed. I had problems with it sometimes working and sometimes not so I had to keep switching the key on and off & depressing the brake pedal until it worked. I opened up the console, and cut the wires to the gearshift assembly - put a piece of heat shrink on the wire ends from wherever they come from and VIOLA - no more stuck in Park - What this technique does is allows the gearshift to come out of park without depressing the brake pedal I sold the car 4 years ago and cannot remember whether the ignition still had to be on or not to shift out of park- I was the only driver and we have no kids so it was not a big deal to have this "safety feature" disabled. Hope this helps
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Thank you for your help, I did not know you could simply cut the wire, very helpful.
6 people found this helpful.
Easiest trick is that the locking steering wheel is in a unique position when you park .. Try turning your ignition key to on , and pull your steering wheel back and forth with some muscle power ..
15 people found this helpful.
For all the questions below of people who can't get their gear shifter out of park ,try to do what I suggested ,its just a strange angle your tires get into when you park..
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You Can drill a hole by the passenger seat and Put your finger in to press a silver button to release the lever
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This appears to be an all to common issue with these cars. I have a 2009 which has not failed (yet) and a 2010 that has. It rendered my daughter's 2010 car unusable since she could not get it into drive although the car was otherwise perfectly functional. That could have been a serious issue had she been somewhere less safe after dark for instance. I
was able to pry the trim away, and temporarily remove the shifter to get the housing underneath off. That exposed the magic button therein which allows the shifter to move when it is pressed. Why Chevy does not at least provide an access hole thru which a screwdriver or something else could be poked to depress that should it fail without requiring that disassembly is beyond me. If one poorly designed or improperly wired component can fail and make the car useless, there ought to be an easy way
to bypass that component. I called the dealer, and they indicated that there are no recalls on this car, and that since I have 60K on it, the warranty does not cover it. My argument that this is directly related to the transmission (in that you can't make use of the transmission, or the engine for that matter if it fails, and it is an integral part of the functioning of the transmission) fell on deaf ears. Not covered by the powertrain warranty was their answer. This is pretty crappy for
a car that is less than two years old IMHO. Anyway, I can probably figure out a way to creatively rewire this to "fix" the problem, but the fact that the whole thing moves with the shifter leads me to believe that there is a good chance of it happening again, and that time it may be in a much less convenient location. My question is, does anyone know how to permanently bypass this "feature"? The protection it provides is minimal, and the whole thing was really designed from what I
can tell to prevent young children from putting the car in gear accidentally. I am fairly certain that the automakers agreed with the NHTSA to install these interlocks for that purpose. I have no young children, and even if I did, they would not be playing in a car in the first place, let alone one with the key in the ignition. I have a 1983 Mercedes diesel with a floor shifter (auto trans) and it had no such safety feature and the lack of that was no issue. Yes, you could shift the car out of
park at any time, but so what? Is there an easy way to permanently disable this system? Would there be other issues, such as perhaps causing the key to not be able to be removed from the ignition, or the ability to attempt to start the car while it is in gear if I did so? Based on the way it failed, I assume that if it loses power (due to a broken wire, or even a dead battery) that it fails in the "locked" position. If that is the case, then it seems I would have to perhaps run power to
it that is at least on when the car is running which might be a pain in the backside to get to that location. I was hoping perhaps there is a way I could jumper something to place it permanently in an unlocked state. As long as that is not a big power drain or something, I don't see an issue with doing that. I am frustrated that the dealer is no help with something that should not be an issue on a 20 month old car. This, along with the myriad of other silly but expensive to repair issues
with the car has really made me question my judgment in buying these vehicles. When they are working properly, they drive fairly well, and they are pretty fuel efficient for their size. I would really love to disable this on the 2010, and then proactively do the same for our 2009 if at all possible. Thanks for any advice you might be able to provide me.