So there’s very little detailed information on the internet about these so I thought I’d post...


I’d previously opened this one and cleaned it, I’d drilled out the rivets, anyway it failed again, this time the park neutral position failed, here’s the gutshot


these things have a cam that actuates push buttons and opens sets of contacts.




this time the assembly failed because the leaf contact in the center had lost tension due to prior damage from water intrusion, if you look closely you’ll see how the lower set of contacts have more oxidation than the rest, and the case has a grey colorization, which I believe is road silt washed down the wiring shroud, which is open at the top of these harnesses.
Just for the record this is probably the first generation switch, these were superseded at some point, I think those are the ones numbered 0501 211 566 at the end, I know other ZF switches have a contact plate and wiper arrangement, I haven’t dissected the later versions to check. I’m not going to be a able to save this one, but if I get another dead one I may attempt to transplant some contacts. I also wanted to experiment with adapting the Audi version to a Jaguar termination, since Chinese made Audi switches are 50.00
Jaguar MSRP on this switch is 1059.00 or so, other indie places sell a supposed ZF switch for 580.00, even used these raging pieces of crap go for 80-199.00. My gripe is that even a basic VCR has 10 times the technology and moving parts and costs 99.00.