I had taken my daughter to get something to eat, when she was done we went to leave, and my car would not shift. I called my brother for help and he found this site, I used to work in an automotive factory so I took the center console off of my car (which is just held on my clips....no screws just in case anyone else decides to try this) and found the pink button (for lack of words) and pushed it back towards the back of my car and my shifter moved and I was able to shift my car. I then called a dealer and they said there is no current recall but it would be anywhere from $200 - $400 to fix my car. And that they have already fixed 7 of them at that dealer. (so if you choose to wait for a recall, it seems like one should be soon, but all you have to do is take out the console pieces and u can put your car in reverse, and then shift into gear)

This is ridiculous and I have complained to Dodge and the local dealers. I hope no one else has this problem. Had my brother not found this site I would have been paying a $150 tow bill too.

Apparently I was not aware of this "known" issue but found out on a warm summer day of 108 degrees that my 2008 Dodge Avenger would not move out of park. I had checked everything I could think of (e-brake, tranny fluid, steering wheel) and decided to call the Dodge dealer to speak with a mechanic to see if they could provide some insight before I called a tow truck while stuck at work. The guy had the nerve to tell me to make sure all of my back brake lights were working as this could cause the problem..YEAH RIGHT! Coincidentally, one of the lights was burned out and being as desperate as I was I had a friend from work take me to the nearest Autozone. Replaced it but no luck. I called for a tow truck and while I was waiting, decided to use a life line (google) to see if anyone else had this problem. Car Complaints was the first hit and it looks like others have had this issue. Thanks to the stories I found on here, I was able to remove the chrome (plastic) trim from around the shifter and locate the mentioned "hot pink module" on the left hand side. Using the backside of a knife I pulled back on this module (I think it is a spring) and with my foot on the brakes was able to move it into gear. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE HELP!!!

My car is stuck in park! Not sure how to categorize this problem. I have been told it can be the brake light switch,shifter, shifter cable. I bought it used from Toyota of Lewisville, and have had one problem after another in the 7 weeks I have owned it. If anybody has any advice for me, PLEASE SEND!

Update from Jun 20, 2010: The entire shift assembly has to be replaced! A dealer or large mechanic will want to charge you over $300. to fix this. DON"T DO IT! You can do this yourself. Buy the shift assembly at the Dodge parts house, it will be less than $50. I paid $38. Get a butter knife or something flat and pop the trim around the shifter and then pop the plastic trim on your console that goes up towards your dash, it ends around the air conditioner buttons. You can put the knif in at the top of each side and it pops easily off. Remove the change holder plastic peice in front of your shifter. There will be 2 screws under that, remove them, then open your console, in the very bottom is 4 screw, remove them. Lift your emergency brake up in the on position and lift out your console pc. After you have removed that you will be able to get to the 4 screws to remove the shifter assembly. There is a cable that slides into the hot pink clip, you will have to press on the brake to loosen it to release it from the old assembly and again to put it back on your new one., plug in your two plugs you will have to unhook, very easy, and you are finished. Put your trim back on and you are good to go. The bad thing about this is, Dodge knows this is a bad part, they have done nothing to fix it. You can not buy this part after market, only from Dodge so you are putting the exact same defective part right back on and crossing your fingers on how long it will last. The problem is that there is a hot pink plastice pc that hold a spring, there is a tiny hook at the end of it that is hot pink, this little PLASTIC hook breaks off and the spring disappears(never found it) and the shifter is then locked in place. I took my trim off and used the butter knife to push the hot pink lever back manually so I could drive it to buy the part. As you can see buy the tools I use(BUTTER KNIFE) I am not a mechanic.LOL This should let you know that you can for sure do this yourself and save alot of money. And please report this to SAFECAR.GOV to help prompt a recall cause the new shifter you put in will brake again. Good luck and thanks to this website for helping me find out what my problem was. The parts house will also print you a diagram of what you have to do to fix it, you just have to ask. I did have the help of a small mechanic that volunteerd to help me(friend) but this is a job for ourselves and not a job for Dodge to make more and more money on. THANK YOU AND GOOD LUCK

When you call a Dodge dealership and the service manager tells you that they average around ten of these repairs a week, Houston I think we have a problem!!!!! I called and had to reserve the part at the dealerships parts department, because they used so many of them that they cannot guarantee availability. When is someone going to step in and order a recall. I feel sorry for the poor suckers who are spending their money on tow trucks, and then getting ripped at the dealership for hundreds of dollars in repair costs, just because a spring failed. If I wasn't able to affect the repair myself the tow alone would have been seventy-five miles.. I am not happy with Dodge and think I will try Ford next time.

Update from Nov 10, 2010: This is a bullcrap problem. The dealership informed me that I needed to have my car towed 75mi. to them so they could diagnose the problem, but they were pretty sure it was a broken part on the shifter ass., and it would cost about 360.00 plus parts. to repair. I told them they were out of their mind. I ordered the part for 46.37 picked it up and when I returned home, my 20yr old daughter who is a nursing student replaced the shifter ass in less than forty minutes. If you are paying Dodge for this repair you are being taken. It only requires a 10mm socket, one foot of extensions and a ratchet. Any idiot could do this. And the dealership is saying repairs could take up to four hours. It is a scam. Also if you or someone in your family is driving a dodge vehicle with floor shifter. Put a screwdriver in the glove box. When the shifter locks up in park it is due to a small plastic hook that breaks and releases a spring. All you have to do to override this, is to pop up the decorative bezel that is around your shifters indicator. Look straight down and just to the left of R and you will see a pink plastic cam. Simply start the car and use the screwdriver (or similar appliance) to move this cam to the rear, the vehicle will now shift out of park and work normally, so you can take it for repair without the tow truck. The cam is easily seen and reached and requires little or no effort to move. Remember all the gears will work normally, however if you shift into park you will have to shift the cam again to get moving. This may save your loved ones a lot of grief. The newest replacement parts have a beefed up hook system on the cam to prevent a recurrence.

My car was working fine* up to this point. *(Had the power mirrors fail, wiper jets, front right ball joint replaced in the past year under warranty since owning it) Yesterday, June 5, 2010 I got in the car and the shifter would not move out of park. Engine started up, no warning lights on the dash. Ended up getting a ride since the dealership is not open on the weekend. Was able to force the shifter down enough into R to back it out of the driveway so a tow truck can pick it up tomorrow. This car has been nothing but problems since I got it and this looks like it will turn into yet another one they will find a way to not cover by the warranty.

Update from Jun 12, 2010: The part was not covered by my warranty and wanted me to pay $360. Did not offer any info about the part costing $40. I talked to a Dodge corporate customer service rep who after 2 days (while my car sat at the shop) of alleging to call me back I called and was offered 25% off which they claimed to be more than generous. I referenced this site about many other people having the same problem and was told "the internet is not a credible source", but contradicted herself by saying that all this comes down to a learning experience for me and I should research a vehicle or model further before purchasing (which most people look to the internet for this). Oh and the 25% is not instant. I have to mail in a form and letter and wait 45 days for processing the rebate.

The replacement did get my shifter working again, but the service department created new issues. For some reason they routed an aux headphone cable I had hanging out of the radio for mp3's through the dash under the plastic and out onto the floor of the passenger side. Also my shift knob itself is now covered with sharp edges where they bent the chrome with a screwdriver. I was told they were too busy to get the wire out and showed me where the screws are to do it myself and I go back Monday to see if they will replace the knob.

I got up to go to work this morning & couldn't get my car out of park.... I did everything exactly like I always have, even tried tugging on the shifter but no use it was stuck. A friend from work came by & took the console apart & figured out the little pink button wasn't getting pushed by the cable & said I should call the dealership. I called my son instead & he found you guys who all have the same exact problem. Needless to say I will probably be driving the car without a console, pushing the little pink button by hand until they do a recall. I just had A/C work done yesterday, I can't afford this too. How can this just happen without warning? It worked fine yesterday.

Update from Jun 9, 2010: This update is for anyone who might happen upon this site in the future. My friend who found the problem in the first place happened to have a friend who works at the Dodge dealership here in town & was able to look at the shifter components as they should be. The little pink button has a small spring which controls the cable. The spring was no where to be found in my car console ??? who knows where it sprang to when it broke off. Anyway the good news was the part (shifter) only cost a little over $40. & I was lucky enough that my friend was able to put it in. I feel sorry for those of you that have already spent $400-500. to get your cars fixed. I'm back on the road & all is well.

I have a 2008 Dodge Avenger that I bought in 2008 used, it has over 67 thousand miles on it. I was able to drive my car last night at 11 pm but when I got ready to take my kids to get hair cuts today my cars shifter module did not want to move from park to drive. I restarted the car, I put the cars emergency brake on and off I even pumped the brake a few timew to see if that would help it, it did not help. I called the dealer after my boyfriend had found this site and asked them if they have heard of this problems and they said they had not, I mentioned that there was plenty of forums with this same problem being complained about from other consumers and they said it still was not a defect. They want me to have the car towed to them and then I am going to have to have the part replaced and pay out of pocket.

i am a home health nurse. i was visiting patients . got in the car to go to next pts house and my gear shift would not shift out of park. tried the reset button idea found in the users guide. of course, it didn't work. had to call my husband to come help. he lost 4 hours of work and so did i , because of this stupid problem. my husband took off the panels from the shifter and finally figured out how to get the gear to move by pushing down this little gear thingy on the left side of the shifter. we don't have it fixed yet so i have to drive it with the panel off and manually triggering the shifter. sounds like dodge should fix this to me. this is definatly a manufacturers defect. i should have stuck with a ford!

I had my car towed to the dealership & they advised they didn't know what was wrong but they had to replace the shifter assembly. No one could tell me why it wasn't covered under the warranty. They said soda could be causing the problem, but I never spilled anything in the car. They originally quoted $200, but I told them they need to advise why it's not covered under the warranty. They called back and said they could fix it for $100, which is $50 less than my service deductible, so I'm getting it fixed. I will post an update after I get my car back today to advise what they tell me.

This is so annoying! My daughter tries to go to the store today (today's mother's day) and isn't able to get the gear going. She tells me the gear is stuck in the park position. After doing some research, it appears this is a very freaking annoying problem with the Dodge 2008 avengers! As I did further research, this problem should be covered under the lifetime transmission warranty but only if you are the first time buyer! I'm not the first time buyer, but the 2nd registered owner of this car so I'm sh.. out of luck! Now what? I dont have the money to repair this. I have to take it in to the Chrysler dealership and to do that, I'll have to get it towed!

I went to take my son to school this morning, the car started as usual, but it would not shift out of park. I went on line and found that I am not the only one having this problem. My husband called the Dodge dealer and they knew exactly what he was talking about. The tow trucker driver that came to get the car said that he has towed many Dodge vehicles (Avenger, 300, etc) that had the same issue. The dealer said the this issue is known by the Dodge company, but they don't want to do a recall. So, this leads me to believe that they don't give a damn about the consumer. My car is a 2008 and I just bought it in June of 2009 and I will not purchase another Dodge vehicle.

I purchased this car about 5 months ago, appeared to be in great shape with reasonably low mileage. I have not experienced any problems before now.

Unfortunately, with NO WARNING, I went to leave for work yesterday and the car was "stuck" in park. I was unable to shift out of park into any gear. My husband had to drive me to work and, as I work 6 PM to 6 AM, and he doesn't get off work until 8 AM, I will be stuck at work until he can come get me.

Of course, being a weekend, there was no place to call and find out solutions. This problem has been a royal pain in the butt ... and don't know yet how much it will cost to fix.

I did a Google search and amazingly, immediately found this web site and listings, so it appears this is a major problem.

I have had the same problem as many people on here. The car is stuck in park, so I try to rock the car back and forth, press on the brake firmly, I even checked fuses. I took out my phone, Googled the problem and found a few sites with this same issue. I noticed everyone was mad because it was out of warranty and had to pay 300-600 dollars to fix it. That was, until I came across this guy that put a spring over the cable connected to the pink module, and it fixed it for about a dollar or two. For about a week, I used a butter knife to press back the module so I could drive until I had time to fix it. Dodge needs to recall this part and replace the poor engineering. Anyways, here is what this other guy said, and it saved me a bunch of money!

"From reading other sites, there seems to be a weak design. There is a plastic assembly with a spring, the hook for the spring breaks and the car can't be shifted out of park. You will have to remove the interior covers for the gear shifter, this can be done by hand, they all just snap in place. To get you going, press the brakes and pull back on the hot pink plastic cube located on the left side of the shifter assembly as you pull the shifter into gear. This will allow you to at east drive the car to the shop if need be.

If you car is under warranty, take it to the shop.

My car was past the warranty, so I fixed it myself. Looking at the assembly, I saw where the spring used to be. I bought a 75 cent, compression spring at the hardware store (Hillman spring #106 4" X 5/16" X 0.35) which I cut to 3.5in long. I pulled the cable assembly out that actuates the hot pink plastic tab, put the spring over the cable (coil over setup like parking breaks are) and re-installed. I verified it before I put all the covers back on. This can be a field repair, the covers can be removed by hand, but a pair of needle nose pliers are handy to re-install the cable."

Hope this helps!

I left work today, get in my car, and try to leave, I can't!! Why?!?! because the car will not go out of park, no warnings to lead up to this happening. It was such an inconvenience. I had to borrow a car, my daughter missed her appointment, my sitter met me with my kids and had a late dinner with her family and I had to leave my car in an area overnight that I was not comfortable with. What a pain!! No recalls and a lot of money out of a single parent income, I have not even had the car two years. Due to my miles the warranty will not cover the repair, unless the extended warranty does, won't know until tomorrow. I'm going to have to get my car towed back to the dealership and am stranded and inconvenienced. Both my kids have games tomorrow....hope they can fix it by then or give me a loaner.