Cannot Shift Gear Out Of Parking (Galaxy, Oct. 2000)

[lingenavd]

Hello everyone,

 

I live in the Netherlands and English is not my native language, so bear with me and I apologize if my English is somewhat strange.

 

I have a Galaxy from October 2000 and I really love the car. The Galaxy has an automatic gearbox and normally works like a charm.

It began in the summer of 2018. We were on holidays to France and the day we went back she decided that we would not be able to go. All packed up, suitcases in the back, roof-box was packed and locked, all 4 kids were hyped and ready to go, everything was set to go home again after two wonderful weeks in France.

I started the engine but she would not let go of the "P" with the automatic gear shift lever.

I was pressing my brake paddle but the green warning light (brake paddle indicator) stayed green, so I could not get her into R, N or D. Stuck in P for ever. The car got her wish, we could not leave France and we were forced to stay in the sunny weather.

So I restarted the car a few times, key out of the ignition etc. Nothing worked.

I had to call the road service and they learned me a trick by short-circuit-ting the right brake tail light.

So one person behind the wheel and one person short-circuit-ting the right brake tail light for the green light to go off in the dashboard and finally I could shift the gearbox into "D". It worked!!

Then we removed the short-circuit wire and placed all bags and suitcases back and of we went. We had to do this with every full stop we made.

 

Strangely enough it started working normally again after we left France and Belgium and were back in the Netherlands.

It never came back until today. :-(

 

What could be the issue here? I have checked the circuit breakers, I have disconnected the main battery etc.

I think it must be some faulty switch or something but which one and where?

 

I would love to fix it because we are not able to travel alone in the car. You need two people at least to do the short-circuit trick :-)

 

Any help is much appreciated!

Thank you,

 

Andre

Edited March 20, 2019 by lingenavd

[gregers]

welcome to the forum,please take a look within the forum using the search facility top right of the forum,also take a look in the faqs found in the technical section.any info/answers may be in there.

[BrianH]

Most likely you want a new brake pedal switch, located on the brake pedal.

 

But its also possible its down to broken wires in the boot gaiter (the rubber boot on the righthand side contains all the electrics and these do snap/break as they get old)