Prius Transmission Shifting Problem

From what im reading here i believe that he is saying that the mechnical (electronic manually operated) shifter, (or the blue thing with letters and lines on it) is physically stuck, sticking or jammed. Is it possible that you spilled some coffee or some kind of drink in it?

 

It doesn't have shifting gears but it does have a transmission locking pawl, the same as a conventional auto, that is operated by the P switch or by turning the power off.

 

True. Those old automatic transmissions had manually operated parking pawls, which is why it could be difficult to shift out of park with the pawl loaded. The Prius differs in two important ways:

1) The parking pawl is electrically operated by a fairly robust motor.

2) Instead of being a true pawl, the parking lock is more of a ring screw with coarse threads. It is incredibly robust and not inclined to jam.

Tom

 

If the 12V battery is depleted, or another less likely malfunction, is there any way to get past that so I can at least push the car out of my garage? (let alone to a tow truck)

 

No. You can supply external 12V power from a jump. It is also theoretically possible to dismantle the parking pawl, but that is not a practical solution.

Your normal best bet is to jump. If that doesn't work you have to skid the car or use dollies.

Tom

 

We just took our 2009 Prius into the dealership today. In the last 2 weeks two different people in my family have experienced the same transmission problem you describe. Both times though the car was just turned on. We put the car into gear and nothing happened. it would not go forward or backward. The only way we could get the car to move was to turn off the car and restart. When I took the car into the dealership today, the crew there said they had NEVER heard of this problem with a Prius. I told them to look online to see if there was anything ever reported. Obviously, it didn't take me long to see others have had a problem. This problem began last week and now has happened twice. This is very concerning!

 

You have a 2nd generation and your post probably belongs in that sub-forum. It seems unlikely that whatever problem you're having is the same as that of the 3rd gen since the shifter looks physically and feels differently between the two. The 3rd gen's feels flimsier to me partly due to it having less spring tension.

Some folks w/2nd gens have had issues (failure in the shift knob mechanism?) where the car wouldn't stay in drive, unless held there.

I can't speak to the problem w/the other Priuses in your family since we don't know the model year.