What does it mean if car won't go in gear?

Answer 1

Probably that the gearbox is badly damaged or worn.

Car gears are controlled by a series of cogwheels, the teeth of which are called SECTORS and which are engaged by PINS, which slot into the cog teeth. It may be that one or more of the gear sectors has either broken off or become so worn down that the selector pin cannot engage with it. Another possibility is that the gearbox is dry of oil and the whole mechanism is simply too stiff to engage gear.

If the car is an automatic, automatic gearboxes are considerably more complicated that manual ones, so in this case, there may be further reasons of which I am unfamiliar (I am writing from England, where most of the cars we have are manual drive).

Either way, you will need to take the vehicle to a garage where they will be able to remove the 'box and diagnose the problem.