Rotary Shifter randomly locked in Park

[Zig10]

New Expedition owner here with an intermittent shifter issue. We've owned our 2018 Max Limited for about 2.5 months, and twice have had the shift knob refuse to move out of park. Now, had this happened in our garage or a parking spot it would've been frustrating enough, but the occurrences have been 1. When my wife was in the car rider line picking our kids up at school, and 2. On the launch ramp at my marina with the boat on the trailer in the water.

Nothing like being the star of the show for screwing up the flow of traffic.

Each time the vehicle was not turned off, just shifted into park to load up. The first time my wife got the dial to move again by turning the car off, getting out, letting it power down, and then restarting. The second time that didn't work. We tried it 4 times, and no change, and then suddenly it released seemingly on its own. I am thinking it may be an issue with the shift interlock at the brake pedal, but that wouldn't explain the randomness of the occurrences. It's going to the dealer this week, but I am not hold out hope since it has only happened twice in 10 weeks.

For comparison, once was on perfectly flat ground with no parking brake engaged, and the other was on the ramp with the parking brake engaged, so either way there shouldn't have been any weight on the parking prawl to mess it up.

Anybody else had this experience, by chance?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Deadman]

I'll bet 95% chance the parking brake was on...
The parking brake engages anytime you park on a hill, or slam it into park before the vehicle is fully stopped. Mine did this a couple times before I realized what was keeping me in park. Its annoying, but in this day people have no brains, so the cars have to do al the thinking for them......

 

[aggiegrad05]

I'll bet 95% chance the parking brake was on...
The parking brake engages anytime you park on a hill, or slam it into park before the vehicle is fully stopped. Mine did this a couple times before I realized what was keeping me in park. Its annoying, but in this day people have no brains, so the cars have to do al the thinking for them......

But that wouldn’t prevent it from shifting out of P.

 

[ETC13]

I'll bet 95% chance the parking brake was on...
The parking brake engages anytime you park on a hill, or slam it into park before the vehicle is fully stopped. Mine did this a couple times before I realized what was keeping me in park. Its annoying, but in this day people have no brains, so the cars have to do al the thinking for them......

This make no sense. The parking brake is designed to auto release when shifted to drive and foot is placed on the accelerator. Check your owners manual as this is a feature. So it should have nothing to do with not shifting out of park.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

 

[2018 EXPY]

New Expedition owner here with an intermittent shifter issue. We've owned our 2018 Max Limited for about 2.5 months, and twice have had the shift knob refuse to move out of park. Now, had this happened in our garage or a parking spot it would've been frustrating enough, but the occurrences have been 1. When my wife was in the car rider line picking our kids up at school, and 2. On the launch ramp at my marina with the boat on the trailer in the water.

Nothing like being the star of the show for screwing up the flow of traffic.

Each time the vehicle was not turned off, just shifted into park to load up. The first time my wife got the dial to move again by turning the car off, getting out, letting it power down, and then restarting. The second time that didn't work. We tried it 4 times, and no change, and then suddenly it released seemingly on its own. I am thinking it may be an issue with the shift interlock at the brake pedal, but that wouldn't explain the randomness of the occurrences. It's going to the dealer this week, but I am not hold out hope since it has only happened twice in 10 weeks.

For comparison, once was on perfectly flat ground with no parking brake engaged, and the other was on the ramp with the parking brake engaged, so either way there shouldn't have been any weight on the parking prawl to mess it up.

Anybody else had this experience, by chance?

Thanks in advance.

the new expedition have the safe lock or whatever, its idea is that it will shift into park whenever a door is open while the car is at stop. it would not allow the driver to drive the car while the doors are open.
one more thing, if the remote battery is not good, it will trick the car into thinking that the key is not in the vehicle and it will also lock the shifting to park.

 

[aggiegrad05]

the new expedition have the safe lock or whatever, its idea is that it will shift into park whenever a door is open while the car is at stop. it would not allow the driver to drive the car while the doors are open.
one more thing, if the remote battery is not good, it will trick the car into thinking that the key is not in the vehicle and it will also lock the shifting to park.

I think you're on to something. I'll bet it's something that's triggering the "holy crap I need to be in P" feature rather than a problem with the tranny.

 

[nate6966]

While moving my tractor around this past weekend, I moved the vehicle multiple times with the door opened. Here's what I experienced:
When my seatbelt was on, vehicle was in drive or reverse, and I opened the door - lights and bells started going off but it stayed in gear while at a standstill.
When the seatbelt was off, the vehicle would shift to park automatically - HOWEVER, it was extremely easy to just shift it back into gear while the door was still open. I DID have to press the brake pedal to get it to shift out of park when the door was open and seatbelt was off.
Either way, based on the flashing lights and bells, the vehicle is very concerned about safety when one tries to move the vehicle with a door open.
A curious thing to point out - my 2019 Expedition didn't do anything other than warning bell and light if one of the passengers unbuckled and opened a door while the vehicle was in gear at a standstill.

 

[Zig10]

Thanks for all of the replies. I am going to try playing with it a bit after work today to see if I can get it to replicate by getting out with the keys, opening doors, etc. I have an appointment with the dealer tomorrow, though I am not holding out much hope since it only has happened twice in 2 months.

All that said, I did finally locate the shift lock override (amazing what you can find in the manual!) in case it happens again. They did a heck of a job hiding that in the center console storage bin, I'll tell you that much.

I'll update after the dealer has a look.

 

[Uturn]

2018 EXPY has a point with the key remote. These things can be real sensitive to not only the remote battery condition, but even to the location of the remote in the vehicle. On another point, the knob does not rotate when the transmission goes into park and the limits of the knob rotation is controlled by the transmission module, otherwise the knob would rotate 360 degrees. The transmission is also drive by wire with no physical connection between the shift knob and the transmission.

 

[hosseface]

I'd recommend a scan of the Transmission for trouble codes.

I had a very random issue with the parking brake automatically coming on. After over 3 weeks and 3 tries, they finally got it fixed. I had a harness shorted out inside the transmission.

 

[Zig10]

Dealer said there was a TSB out regarding the issue and did a software update / recalibration on the PCM / TCM. Only time will tell, but at least they didn't dismiss it out of hand.

 

[TX-EXPMAX]

I just picked up a 2019 Max last week (really enjoying it so far) and have had something weird happen with the rotary knob as well. I was turning around and switching from drive to reverse (not used to how many clicks yet) and was almost (but not completely stopped) and the thing went all the way to park! Scared the ever living crap out of me as i could hear the transmission grabbing and i of course slammed on the brakes. I know I know, shame on me for not coming to a complete stop, but coming from an F250 that would allow for a little roll this was a change.

Is there not some safety mechanism that stops you from accidentally shifting to park while in motion?

 

[Deadman]

Theres ALL KINDS of safety BS. I was driving like 3-5 mph in drive and I popped my drivers door open and it immediately slammed the transmission into Park and it clicked and tried to shear off the parking lock pin in the trans. I was not impressed. I understand its not a good idea to open the door, but I nearly got killed as I was in an intersection and the dam thing stopped me dead and I needed to get it back into gear, take the parking brake off and then reaccelerate....

 

[TX-EXPMAX]

Theres ALL KINDS of safety BS. I was driving like 3-5 mph in drive and I popped my drivers door open and it immediately slammed the transmission into Park and it clicked and tried to shear off the parking lock pin in the trans. I was not impressed. I understand its not a good idea to open the door, but I nearly got killed as I was in an intersection and the dam thing stopped me dead and I needed to get it back into gear, take the parking brake off and then reaccelerate....

Yep, i was going maybe 2mph and it sounded like the parking paw was ratcheting the car to a halt. Unbelievable...

 

[aggiegrad05]

Theres ALL KINDS of safety BS. I was driving like 3-5 mph in drive and I popped my drivers door open and it immediately slammed the transmission into Park and it clicked and tried to shear off the parking lock pin in the trans. I was not impressed. I understand its not a good idea to open the door, but I nearly got killed as I was in an intersection and the dam thing stopped me dead and I needed to get it back into gear, take the parking brake off and then reaccelerate....

You don't have to take the parking brake off...once it's in gear you can just accelerate and the parking brake releases automatically.

 

[lobsenza]

I discovered this when backing my trailer into the lake. I opened the door to look and see how far in I was and it slammed into park. No, I did not have my seat belt on. I wear it all the time except when backing a trailer. A stupid idea. I can't imagine this is good for the transmission.

I do like the automatic shifting into park when you hit the start/stop button. This is especially helpful when the auto stop engages since it prevents the vehicle from restarting and then shutting off.

 

[rcicca7]

While moving my tractor around this past weekend, I moved the vehicle multiple times with the door opened. Here's what I experienced:
When my seatbelt was on, vehicle was in drive or reverse, and I opened the door - lights and bells started going off but it stayed in gear while at a standstill.
When the seatbelt was off, the vehicle would shift to park automatically - HOWEVER, it was extremely easy to just shift it back into gear while the door was still open. I DID have to press the brake pedal to get it to shift out of park when the door was open and seatbelt was off.
Either way, based on the flashing lights and bells, the vehicle is very concerned about safety when one tries to move the vehicle with a door open.
A curious thing to point out - my 2019 Expedition didn't do anything other than warning bell and light if one of the passengers unbuckled and opened a door while the vehicle was in gear at a standstill.
View attachment 64230

I have had similar problems, however, I didn't get any bells and whistles. I jumped out of my car and it started to roll backwards. The back passenger door was open as well and it hit a post and bent the door hinges. . .

 

[rcicca7]

Obviously it didn't shift into park automatically nor did the parking break come on. I have had issues where it will not come out of park as well. Parking breaknwas not on.

 

[SyndicateZ]

If the driver door is opened while engine is on it will auto shift to park..

 

[Fastcar]

I'm thinking that the brake was not depressed enough. Should it happen again try a hard slam on the brake pedal