I've only had mine for a month or so, but a couple of times already I have had trouble getting the rotary transmission selector come out of drive. It's a bit scary for me, as both times was in my garage pulled up close to the wall in front. Anybody else ever have this?

 

Ive only ever turned it off in drive by accident and the car automatically put itself in park. You should check and make sure youve had your recall done for the rotary gear selector.

 

Does the recall apply to 2011's? I thought that was just the 09's?

 

This is the first report of this issue in a post 2009 car.

Let us hope this fault has not returned to haunt us. Get thee to a dealer right away and get that diagnosed and fixed. Report back. That demon was supposed to be exorcised years ago.

 

going to the dealer on Monday - I'll let you know if they find anything - I am worried that since it has only happened twice, they won't be able to reproduce it.

 

Is there an on call exorcist for flare ups?

 

Do keep in mind not to apply downward pressure when attempting to move into drive. That action is reserved for Sport. Once the dial is depressed, it no longer rotated toward Park only toward Sport. I know I ran into this a few times when trying to make quick turn arounds until I got the hang of it.

 

That's a good point, I have done the same thing and thinking I had a problem before realizing what I had done.

 

And it does drop down very easily. I shall experiment today and see for myself how easy this mistake is to make. I routinely use only a rotating pressure on the puck although it is very easy to lean on it a little as it "falls readily to hand" as Henry Manney III used to say.

I did check and mine, replaced under the warranty program, is clearly easy to move between D and N and the detent down to S is a definite downward push. On my car at least it would be unlikely that I would push down inadvertently with enough pressure to prevent me moving from D to N.

There is no detent between D and N just as for a lever type selector, as one needs to be able to easily select N from D for safety. Going from N to D is similarly very convenient and I am unlikely to press down while doing so.

Sounds like the old defective selector problem re-appearing on a newer car.

 

OK, then here is the "second" report of the problem. My 2011 Premium has done it dozens of times, will only allow the selection of D or S, not N, R, or P. It has never done this when I drive using only D, and only once using S without using paddles, but when using the paddles it does it at least 80% of the time. Sometimes I can get it to work by mashing down the brake as hard as I can, but a good half the time I have to turn the engine off and let it automatically go to P. This has been only a minor annoyance except for a couple times when I needed to back up with other cars waiting for me to get out of the way, having to shut down and restart to back up is a drag. I will be going in for first service in a couple months, I will bring this up (along with the creaking right rear door seal) when I do that. Other than these two little things (and the navigation system) the car has been truly awesome to drive.

 

so the dealer ordered a transmission selector for me and if the problem occurs again we will install it (I am not 100% sure that it was not operator error, and that I wasn't pressing down on it) - if it happens again - I will know.