OK... first post... my wife got a caliber last week. She has found that when she parks on a slight incline, she cannot get the car out of park. Called the dealer and they said that she had to push hard on the brake. She put the seat as close as possible and practically stood on the brake, didn't work for her. Some other guy sat in the car and it worked fine for him. This happened 3 times her first day of driving the car. She's really tiny, 100lbs 5'2". Anyone have any ideas?

Ummm.....don't park on an incline?

ORIGINAL: jorgesanchz

OK... first post... my wife got a caliber last week. She has found that when she parks on a slight incline, she cannot get the car out of park. Called the dealer and they said that she had to push hard on the brake. She put the seat as close as possible and practically stood on the brake, didn't work for her. Some other guy sat in the car and it worked fine for him. This happened 3 times her first day of driving the car. She's really tiny, 100lbs 5'2". Anyone have any ideas?

If you have owned a car with normal automatic transmission you can do this same thing parking on an incline,
because you are letting the car weight rest against the PARKING PAWL.
Try first shifting to neutral then set the parking BRAKE,then put in park and turn off.
Good luck!!!!

I've read in my owners manual that there's a button under a little cover on the side of the shift lever to over ride the 'must press brake to shift out of park' feature for emergencies. Try that if you're stuck.

The best thing you can do is set the parking brake before you put the car in park on an incline.

Thanks guys, I showed her the release today... The problem is that her work has hills so she is constantly parking uphill. I'll see if the parking brake will help her.

ORIGINAL: HICALIBER

I've read in my owners manual that there's a button under a little cover on the side of the shift lever to over ride the 'must press brake to shift out of park' feature for emergencies. Try that if you're stuck.

There was a previous post on another forum regarding the little lever right hand side trans bezel,
the fellow who posted it had a external electrical connect for seadoo trailer and backed trailer
down ramp to launch shorted out the connection in the water and blew fuse in brake circuit,
using the little bypass lever was the only way to get out of park.

Very odd. Wonder if this can be replicated on any hill. One of you guys go try it, and report back :D

I have a bad habit off shutting off my Caliber in drive. I use autostick most the time so I'm manually shifting and the fact most my cars have been manual trannies. I keep thinking it's going to get stuck in park everytime I realize I did this and have to put it in park to get the key out. So far so good but I did find where that switch is just in case!

I've stickied this so when mine won't come out of park it will be easy to find [8D]

make sure the pedal is firmly down when trying to shift. I just found this out today. I didnt have my foot fully on the brake when trying to shift out of park and it locks until you put your foot fully down.

I've had this problem twice now. The first time was after the car had been parked at the airport for a few days. While on my way home, I stopped at 7-11 and when I got out, I couldn't get the car out of park. I had seen this topic, so I knew about the small lever in the column. Later that evening, I got a check-engine light... When I scanned the PC, I had two codes (which I should have documented but did not)... One was a transmission code, the second was a brake code. The brake code could not be cleared, because the trans code was still "active". When the trans code was cleared, the brake code went with it.

Fast forward about 6-7 weeks, and it happed again, this time in my garage before work. I got to work and realized that I had no taillights. By the time I got the car to the dealer, the problem had fixed itself, and they couldn't get the car to replicate the issue.

Both times this happened, the days were dry, no rain.

I'll keep the forum posted on this, but right now the car is fine.

Ok several weeks ago I experienced a problem similar to the previous post.
I had parked the in the driveway for a few minutes,went to do some shopping,
put the key and turned it start however I noticed that I depressed the unlock
button as I did that.
Nothing,nada,got the ignition warning in the display and the brake would not release
tranny from park so I released manully and placed in neutral again nothing.
Then I took key out ignition and while still sitting in the car,I first locked and then
unlocked the doors using the keyfob.
I put the key in the ignition and it started first try-I think it was hitting the unlock
button as I tried the start,but who knows-been fine since.

When ever parking the proper way to avoid that is
Foot on brake. Shift to neutral. Pull parking brake. Foot off brake. Shift to park. Now the entire weight of the car is resting on the brakes instead of the parking pin (good). You can tell if you're doing it right by letting the car off the parking brake after "properly" parking on a reasonably level surface. You'll feel the car lurch onto the parking pin!

Your car will pull in an out ofpark and into drivemuch eaiser if you park this way. No one does it but its the proper way to park with an automatic transmisson.

Thanks for the tip Cip however that's the way I park all the time as my
driveway goes down from roadlevel down under my house where the
the garage is located.
The point I tried to make was that there was also no electrical power to the
circiut therefore stepping on the brake would not release the PARK position
locking solenoid,I then could only release it manually.
All that because of depressing the lock/unlock button while restarting
the car.

Just trying to rule out some of the things that may cause this problem.