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I have an 2003 SL55 70k miles. Get gas with my daughter getting ready to head out of the station and the car is stuck in park. No matter how hard you try you won’t get it out of park. Had the car towed back to my. House. Here is how I solved the issue. First pull up on the leather trim at the bottom of the shift lever. Then remove shifter knob by turning the bottom 1/2 turn then pull entire assembly off the shifter rod. Once you do that as long as you have the traditional steering column based ignition system and not the shifter mounted ignition switch. You get a decent sized hammer, while exerting pressure towards the back of the car, hit the top of the shift rod straight down several times. Many times this will get you out of park. Don’t put it back into park once you do this.
If this doesn’t work then you have repair this issue while the car is in park - it’s a much more difficult job but not impossible. BTW there is no over ride or button to press on the SL models. The first step is to remove the two covers on the side of the transmission hump. These just come with a plastic pry instrument. After. That remove all the screws on each side of the console. There are 5 or 6 black torx screws. Open the center console. From the rear most section of the trim on top of the transmission hump pry the trim up to remove the clips. Next is extremely difficult. If the car is in drive or neutral you just lift that wood trim up and then towards the back of the car. If the car is stuck in park, you have bend the wood piece almost to is breaking point in order to clear the shifter that is in park. Once you remove the top transmission trim you have access to the shifter assembly. There are three torx screws that must come out. Two on the back one in the front. The one in the front is covered by a pin. You need to take a flathead screwdriver push that pin in as far as possible and get your torx bit in there while the pin is pushed in.
once the shifter assembly is loosened you have to Jack the car up and go underneath. You have to remove a cross member holding the exhaust in the middle of the car. Four bolts. Then loosen the belly pan. Once that’s done slide the heat shield towards the back of the car. This will give you access to the linkage that is connected to the shifter assembly. The linkage has to be removed pretty gently. A long needle nose player or a very long flathead has to go into the pin on the linkage and slowly pull off the clip and then he shifter linkage.
now go back to the inside of the car, and maneuver the shifter assembly out of the console. There are wires attached to the shifter assembly. The white round wire in the front twists a 1/4 turn clockwise. There is a metal plunger on this wire that when pushed in disengages the steering wheel key lock. The other . Wire plugs just pull right out. once you have the shifter assembly out you unbolt four screws on th bottom to remove the outer aluminum covering. Once that is removed there is a black plastic cover held on with a rivet that rivet needs to be drilled or ground off. Once the black plastic piece is out of the way locate the round servo in front of the assembly. The culprit plastic piece will make contact with the servo. Fish the broken plastic piece out. I didn’t even replace it I just left it out which means the car will go into drive or reverse without having to use the brake - old school. This is side the black plastic has to be removed from. This is the culprit that caused me massive headaches.
05-27-2021, 08:39 PM
.....hats off bud, nice writeup
