[daves57]

this does'nt concern my trusty pontiac its about the 99 lexus i just bought my wife it only has 84,000 miles on it and the 30 day warranty just ran out. anyway yesterday was the first time she had to park on a hill. with the car pointed down the hill she put the thing in park and when she took her foot off the brake pedal the car continued to roll foward making a noise like something was not engaging fully.sounded like two gears that were jumping theis teeth kinda noise. do you think it could be something called a parking pawl? its a rx300 suv. if it is i guess thats expensive to fix cause its gotta be in the tranny right. thanks dave

[Dr. Drivability]

Yup, it's in the tranny and would need to be removed from the vehicle to service...somebody may have slammed it into park while it was still moving at somepoint in it's life and broke the tip of the pawl off?

[stevep]

It could also be that there is a linkage problem and it is not throwing quite enough to fully engage the parking pawl.

I think that the parking pawl MAY be serviceable with the trans in the vehicle.

What you need to do is to disconnect the cable from the shift lever @ the trans and manually put it in Park and see if it holds properly.

You will need 2 people to safely do this test!

[SRR]

Fix it then teach her how to use the parking brake FIRST.

[Ollie]

Originally Posted by SRR

Fix it then teach her how to use the parking brake FIRST.

Yes 2X

[daves57]

Originally Posted by SRR

Fix it then teach her how to use the parking brake FIRST.

she did'nt do it we bought it this way,and if she had used the parking brake we would'nt have discovered that there was a problem.but thanks anyways for your technical advise.have a nice day

[John V.]

I know nothing about the Lexus and only enough about auto trannies to be dangerous.

But what little I know is that stevep knows trannies and I suspect the same thing he suggested.

Possible the park pawl is damaged, but I'd check the linkage first. I suspect the pawl itself would normally be pretty robust, not that it can't be broken, just that I wouldn't expect it to be. Little side story, my first car was a '63 Fury with pushbutton automatic, a lever next to the pushbuttons was used to put it in park. One day, my mom was driving the car. The front seat would sometimes release and slide back. Well my mom is pretty short. Just as my mom was coming to a stop, the seat slid back on her. In a panic, she reached for the lever and threw it into park. The car kinda skidded to a stop but the trans took the abuse. 40 years later, I still tease her about that.

But it is possible that a cable has stretched just enough that when you shove the shifter into park, it isn't quite enough to engage the pawl firmly, accounting for the "gear" grinding that was heard as the "ratchet" mechanism slipped/skipped.

Assuming you can crawl under the SUV without having to jack it up, look at the area where the shifter linkage/cable connects to the trans. Maybe you'll see something obvious or loose.

On level ground and park brake on, have your wife shift the lever (probably have to have the ignition on but engine off) and watch for any movement of the mounting bracket on the trans. Assuming there is such a thing, if the bracket is loose, it might be preventing the full travel of the cable that you need.

Only trans I was ever in was a 4L60E, stevep would know better than me, but I think you could get to the park pawl in it by just dropping the pan, don't think it was a major job beyond that. But it's been awhile, I could be all wet and not the trans you're dealing with anyway.

Just a thought, if the trans fluid was recently changed, maybe somebody didn't reinstall the shift cable bracket to the pan (assuming there is such a thing) quite right causing the fail.

Hope it is something simple, good luck.

[stevep]

Originally Posted by stevep

It could also be that there is a linkage problem and it is not throwing quite enough to fully engage the parking pawl.

I think that the parking pawl MAY be serviceable with the trans in the vehicle.

What you need to do is to disconnect the cable from the shift lever @ the trans and manually put it in Park and see if it holds properly.

You will need 2 people to safely do this test!

You need to do the above first!!!

[John V.]

Steve, just for my own info, are you saying he should disconnect the cable first?

Wouldn't it make sense to look at how the shifter is shifting the trans BEFORE disconnecting anything?

My thought is you might detect something moving (like a bracket) that shouldn't be moving.

What I recall of my 4L60E, there was no adjustment available for the linkage but it was sorta critical to install the bracket properly if you expected it to shift correctly when you moved the gear selector. There may have even been a little adjustment in the bracket to pan, so it was key to get it back where it was (this after dropping the pan in my case).

I understand wanting to check if you can manually move it to Park after disconnecting the cable and see if it holds as a check on the operation of the pawl but I would do that AFTER I checked out the operation with the gear selector connected.

Is there some reason you would skip my "inspection" step?

If you mean, "first" before opening the trans, then I wholeheartedly agree with you. My intent was to have him look at the operation before disconnecting the cable, but it may have sounded like I was skipping your step. Not my intention. Perhaps I should have said, if the operation looks normal with the cable connected but the pawl isn't holding, then disconnect the cable as you described, manually shift it to park, and recheck to see if the pawl now holds.

If it does, that would obviously point to something preventing the shift selector from shifting the trans all the way into park and eliminate any need to get inside the trans as the problem is external.

I think we are on the same page, I just want to be sure I haven't told him to do something he SHOULDN'T do.

Thanks.

[stevep]

John,

If this car showed up on my doorstep with a complaint of "ratcheting in Park" and no other issues, I would do the above test to verify that the cable it throwing all the way.

So based on your post, we are on the same page.

I just want to verify if the trans is actually capable of holding in Park before I did anything else.

And yes, a loose bracket or dislodged clip could also cause this problem.

[n2ogpsj462]

the linkage rod is serviceable in the car but not the pawl itself. However the linkage sits above the valve body and would need to be done by a shop. There are 3 accumulators in the case that will fall out. You need to know what your doing to know how they go back in. But def sounds like a linkage issue likely being the cable or adjustments of said cable. I couldnt imagine a scenario that would break that thing

[daves57]

thanks guys gonna spend the 100 bucks and have a good tranny shop check it out for us. if it is the pawl it's not like we park on hills every day we'll just use the parking brake when in doubt.

[stevep]

If you drive it to my trans shop in West Roxbury, I'll look at it at no charge!

[daves57]

thanks steve ill get back to you if i decide to go that route dave

[stevep]

If you could come on a Saturday, it would be better.