C5 V6 auto. Gear lever stuck in park position.

[Andy B]

Went out to my car this morning and started the engine as normal.
Put my foot on the brakes to select drive, but gear lever would not budge far enough.
I can hear a clicking noise from the gear lever area and the lever moves a little, but will not allow me to select any gears.

Should I pour petrol all over it and add a lighted match?

Thanking you in advance.

Andy

[CitroJim]

No, there's no need for matches just yet.

The Park interlock is not working as it should. If the C5 is the same as the Xantia, there's a solenoid that locks the lever in Park until you press the brake. It's all controlled by the Autobox ECU and the solenoid is operated via a relay.

The solenoid can be manually bypassed by slipping off the trim around the gear gate and looking to the right of the lever. The solenoid pin can be released with a small screwdriver so that you can move the lever out of Park.

[Andy B]

Hi Jim.
Thank you for the information.
I can hear some clicking by the gear lever when I put my foot on the brakes. The lever is then able to move a little but not far enough.
It feels like it has a mechanism that is not retracting quite as much as it should.
I will go out soon to remove the cover and investigate.
After I find the problem, I will have a choice of mending it or never putting it in park again!

Once again, I thank you.

Andy

[Andy B]

I can now select all my gears.
I found a small plastic fitting with a spring underneath and a ball bearing on the top.
The plastic fitting has three legs and one of them has a lug jutting out at the end of it.
The lug is all that holds it in position but the lug must be worn.
I heated the leg to allow me to bend it outwards in the hope that it will work from now on. I hate cheap, nasty plastic parts!
I will try to get a new part as I should think it will be one of the cheaper parts for this car.
Whole job took less than ten minutes.

Lost a days pay though as I didn't think it would be that quick and easy to fix, but I know for next time.

Andy.

[myglaren]

Lost a days pay though as I didn't think it would be that quick and easy to fix, but I know for next time.

Andy.

Look upon it as an unscheduled/surprise holiday with a bit of learning thrown in

[Andy B]

Yes, that is one way of looking at it.

All the best

Andy

[wurlycorner]

Resurrecting this long dead thread as I have a similar problem (with basically the same car!).
My 2003 C5 V6 estate will not come out of Park.
The auto box has not logged any faults and I can see in lexia the auto box is correctly seeing the signal from the brake pedal to show it’s pressed and it is changing state to release the shift lock.
When I try active testing the shift lock, it comes up saying it can’t complete - so the inputs to the ECU and the ECU itself look fine, seems to be an issue with the connection from the ECU to the gearshift unit shift lock, or with the shift lock solenoid in the gearshift unit itself. (Nb: sport and snow buttons also work fine etc).

This car is not ‘on the road’ so I’m not fussed about sorting the problem properly right now (it just adds to the list of others it already has!) I just need to move it on my drive. I’d really like to just manually put it in drive - but I can’t tell from the description in this thread how to do it.
I can’t see anything on the gearshift from what I currently have uncovered. I can’t find any mention of how to do it in the cars owners manual, or in Haynes (which doesn’t cover the v6, but does cover the auto box).

Pics below of how I currently have the gearshift uncovered (I had the centre console apart already).
Please can anyone point at anything that shows how to manually release the shift lock?

Thanks

[xantia_v6]

From Citroen documentation:

Release the "shift lock" ( 4) using a flat screwdriver.

Check F18 in the BSI.

[wurlycorner]

Thank you.
I will have another play when it’s light tomorrow.
Ridiculous that you need to remove the gear knob (if it’s like the manual knobs, they always break when you try and remove them?!) and gaitor/gaitor cover to access it.

Just looking back at my photos and comparing that info… I think the white piece you can see in the second pic, through the ‘window’ in the brown plastic… is the thing depicted in the service manual as item ‘4’ that you need to press down?
I saw that when I removed the trim and thought that might be it, but couldn’t move it with my fingers.
And the item below it looks like a classic old-skool solenoid.

[xantia_v6]

I have never done this on a C5, but I think that you just need to pull the cover up a few cm, no need to remove the gear knob.

[wurlycorner]

Just to update on this - you can't pull the gearshift cover up, there's only a couple of mm between the cover and the bottom of the gearshift knob.
However, it was indeed the white plastic item I mentioned, in the second pic.
You press that down (very little force required) and the gear lever releases.

Thanks for the help pointing in the right direction from the service info!

[the-termin8r]

Since you've got it apart, it might be worth maybe bodging in some kind of manual release that doesn't require you to tear it apart again in the future.

[wurlycorner]

Oh It won’t be going back together anytime soon. The dash was already apart because of another electrical fault that has defied hours of fault finding so far and the car is very much on the back burner…

[wurlycorner]

Not the most exciting or major update, but BSI F18 was fine.
So the plot thickens...

[Clogzz]

I recently had the two white sliding parts in photo 8 binding on their shaft.
A good squirt of WD40 Holy Water sorted it.

https://www.aussiefrogs.com/forum/index ... ift.86380/