draco

Had a very interesting thing happening with my car (3rd Gen 1997 ES300)over the last couple of days. When I go to move the gearstick out of park (so foot on brake, press button and try to move gearstick to reverse or any other gear), the gearstick is not being released. I can move the gearstick out of park by pressing the little button and moving it that way. I also found that if I press the brake in real deep and sort of do that a couple of times, while playing with the button on the gearstick it will eventually release and move.

After this there is no problem moving between any of the gears. However if I do go back into park, then it won't release again. Strange thing was that yesterday it did it and the car was cold. After I got to my folks house, while it was warm I did the deep press of the brake pedal to release it. After that didn't have a problem. Went to my mates house, stayed there for about 4 hours, enough so that the car was reading cold on the temp gauge, and no problems shifting out of park.

Left the car in the garage the whole day today, turned the car on, foot on the brake, try to release out of park and it won't. Again had to either press the little button or press the brake pedal a number of times.

Anyone have any ideas?

ASG14

iTrader: (1)

There is a switch on the brake pedal that allows the car to be taken out of park. When you ht the brake, it also hits the switch and sends a signal to the shifter assemble to allow it to be taken out of park.

1: Switch on brake pedal going bad.
2: Unit on shifter assembly going bad.
3: Wiring issue.

Thats the most likely order for whats bad. #1 I have seen happen on several occasions on Camry's.

tomstep2

I had the exact same issue on mine a few months back. ASG14 is correct about the brake switch. I had a blown fuse for the brake lights. Replaced the fuse and no further issues. Scary thing was that I was driving around with no brake lights until the fuse was relaced.