FWIW, before trying to start the car, you can row the gears, i.e. Park to drive and back again, with the ignition switch in the "run" position. Then start the car. This technique will get a person by until they want to deal with the switch replacement.

Z

Incredible,
but glad your problem is solved.

Cool. Thanks.
The problem with mine was that the engine still turned and when trying to start in drive it any gear thes engines normally won’t turn over, so there was no reason for me to think it was the selector switch but hey, the garage had the right software to find the problem 🤙

Thank you. Much cheaper than I expected too 😊

in my case I would get the failsafe warning once every 10-14 days, always it happened on the first start of the day.. I began to suspect that the switch inside the shifter unit was not reliably indicating to the computer when the car was in Park. On a hunch I began to "row the gears" once before moving the ignition switch from the run position to the start position. That was about 2 months ago. Since then, no failsafe warnings.

Yes, that's a very lazy workaround to a proper fix, but a shifter switch replacement is low on my list of needed maintenance.

Z

I don’t blame you.
A new switch is £500!!
I asked my garage to buy me a second hand one for £160 😎🤙