My wife informed me that as she was backing into a parking space our S-Type stopped moving back, even though it was still in reverse. She said that she put the car in park in an attempt to immediately put back into reverse and continue backing up. The car did go into park but would not come back out of park. When I got home to check it I couldn't move the lever at all. Neutral is lit up in red, even though the car is in park. There are no error messages or warning lights on the dash. Oddly enough when I attempted to use the memory seat function to move the driver seat back nothing happened. What in the world is going on?

 

Car details?

Multiple threads on here with answers but the kind of autobox you have matters.

 

You have the ZF HP26 gearbox and one of the few known issues with this 'box is that the bracket on the side of the box that holds the selector cable comes undone.

From memory it's on the LHS of the gearbox and is held in place by 2x 10mm (I think) bolts, which come undone periodically. This makes gear selection somewhat random.

To check get underneath the car and look on the LHS of the 'box, identify the cable and the bracket and tighten as necessary.

 

Er, how do you know it's the ZF?

It could be a failing battery.

If the 5R55N it can be the shifter cable, or other faults.

In all cases - Search using
stuck in park
should help.

 

+1 on Jagv8's comments.

Fully charge the battery first, while this is happening the car will have chance to reset itself. Reconnect and try again.

 

- for all its worth here's a video of someone showing and the tightening the two bolts on a S-type R - around 2:00 min's in he shows the two bolts that need to be tightened talks abut being stuck in park.

 

Be sure and look under the car for any stray bolts. Since it happened that quick one of the bolts might have just fallen out. Several people have had them come completely out. I used a dab of blue Loctite on mine. They are small 8mm bolts so tighten GENTLY! Snug is good enough.
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Er, because in his siggy Tony says it's a 2005 3.0.

 

I don't see any signature

Oh great, what weird thing's happened to my browser (or something else, forum setting?, what?)....

 

I see his sig

 

Thanks - turns out it was ABP (Ad-block plus).