Chrysler 300 Touring 2005 stuck in park Help?

Answer 1

So your fiance calls you and says's my car won't shift of park, what do you do? Well if she has a Chrysler 300 then you immediately tell her to stop trying to force the shifter into gear! The problem is ever so common (but Chrysler disagrees) the culprit is a small plastic spring latch that is less than a quarter inch long, this small piece alone can render your great big automobile completely useless!

This is VERY VERY common in Chrysler 300, and Chrysler should do a defect & recall about this problem. BUT Chrysler doesn't sell this part alone, they sell the whole Shifter Box for over 200 dollars. But that hook is all you need.

PLEASE, don't take your car to the mechanic to hear them say its a Electrical problem and charge you 500+ for it, AVOID THE STEALERSHIP AT ALL COSTS! You can fix this yourself if your halfway mechanically inclined.

Procedure is as follows:

1 Break down that center console!, if you need to move the car immediately to get home or to your garage or shop then its not a problem if you have a few tools, start popping the trim off the shifter assy, pull up and out on the small storage compartment to the right of the shifter, this will uncover a small pink lever (which Chrysler says will get you at least on the road but may not work), you need to go deeper! Take out the rubber mat directly under the ash tray and cigarette lighter, this will expose two screws, Philips screwdriver will undo this, move through trim and keep shredding until you have the shifter assy naked with no markings, if your shift knob is giving you problems, try sliding the very bottom chrome plastic trim down then the knob up as you spread the white plastic at the base of the leather.

2 Ok your down to the shifter, now with the key in and the car running if your ready to go press and hold the pink lever on the right, their is also another pink part( this is the cheap piece of crap that has you doing what your doing) on the front of the shifter assy, hit this pink part as well and as always with your foot on the brake try to shift, you should be in good shape, now to limp back to your proper repair facility of choice (your house) Shift into drive and only reverse if you need to, when you park leave in neutral and hit the parking brake, do not shift into park!

3 So your ready to fix the problem , well two ways about it, first costs you about 60 bucks and three days, the second, zero bucks and 2 hrs, OK so you have decided to fix now for free great, Now unmount the box! four nuts hold the box in place, there is 3 electrical connections with disconnects and two cable connections do these first, The one on the left is white it is the brake interlock assy, the cable is like a standard bike brake connections lift back and up, the right assy if the actual shifter cable and is very important to get back on right, it connects with a singer bolt, use an edge to scribe a circle around its present location before removing, now you can get it back right at the same spot, now lift the assy out, and undo the connections, now is also a good time to replace the burned out transmission indicator lamp that has never worked (very tiny black light bulb you found when pulling trim off earlier

4 Ok put this piece of junk on your work bench and locate the three tension clamps that hold the outer cover on, there is a single electrical connector that will need to be unplug ed once disassembled. Now shake that crappy thing till the spring falls out, save that spring or pick up a new one if its lost! Now I'm sure you see the pink plastic hammer rotator at the front of the box, and yep that little nub is your broken spring arm, pull the part out and drill a hole right under the missing arm, secure the spring back to arm with aircraft aluminum wire or copper wire or fishing line, shoe lace, zip tie, tooth floss, usb cord, or the like and attach the other side of the spring to the black bottom shell and place back on post where you found it, your done and you just saved yourself a car payment,

5 Put it back in and go!

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I would like to add to this just a little. After drilling a small hole through the pink plastic culprit, insert a cottor pin through the hole and bend the straight part of the pin around the back of the pink plastic piece. You can then attach the small spring to the eyelet of the cottor pin which will make this a permanent fix and is much stonger than the factory part and will never break again!!!

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I wrote the addition of the cottor pin last Sunday morning before I actually tried doing this. I heard of it on another site and it made sense. After posting the suggestion above, I went and tried it. It has now been a week since I fixed my shifter and the cottor pin idea works like a charm!!! I could not remove the shifter from the console entirely even after removing the four bolts that secure it to the car and removing the 2 cables and the 3 (I think) electrical plugs. I had to unbolt the center console (4 bolts inside of the console storage area and 2 screws behind the ashtray trim bezel) and slide it towards the back seat in order to remove the shifter completely. Pry the top part of the shifter away from the bottom section and you will be able to remove the pink plastic culprit easily. Notice how the pink plastic piece sits in there before you remove it so you can install it the same way. Before drilling the small hole for the cottor pin, file the broken nub down until it is smooth with the rest of the piece. Now drill a small hole all the way through to the back side immediately below where you file that broken nub down. Insert your cottor pin all the way through so only the eyelet is sticking out. Bend the cottor pin around the backside of the pink plastic culprit. Attach the little spring to the cottor pin eyelet and install the pink plastic culprit into the shifter just the way you removed it. Attach the other end of the little spring to the little plastic hook about 2 inches away on the front of the shifter bottom section. Snap the top piece of the shifter back onto the bottom of the shifter and install the shifter back into it's original place.

Install the 2 cables, the 4 bolts and the 3 electrical connectors that you removed while removing the shifter. Slide the center console back into place and install the 2 screws behind the ashtray trim bezel. Pop the ashtray trim bezel into place and install the 4 bolts in the console storage area. If you did everything right, your repair should outlast your car!!! I would also suggest disconnecting your car battery so as not to accidentally deploy your airbags. Good luck!!!

Answer 2

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