I let my stupid sister drive my car!

[blastinacton]

Hello, Recently I let my stupid sister drive my 1997 Buick LeSabre. While the car was rolling she slammed it into park. Now the car wont move in any gear. Any advice besides not letteing her drive anymore?

[pcmos]

I just got done doing a full transmission teardown and rebuild on my 2000 LeSabre with great success so I do know a thing or two about that mechanism. When you say the car won't move in any gear does it sound like the engine is reving as if its in neutral or does it feel more like someone has their foot on the brake? The parking pawl mechanism is nothing more than a pin that pushes foward against a wheel with some big square cut teeth on it that resembles sort of a large gear. The parking gear itself is located in the final drive housing but the pin linkage runs the length of the transmission starting at the shift selector lever on the driver's side. Essentially when you select park, the pin linkage pushes the pin through the actuator guide (nothing more than a sleeve) where it engages (jams) the teeth on the parking gear in the final drive housing on the passenger side. It may be that when she threw the car into park that the pin has now deformed or gotten stuck in the teeth in the parking gear. This would produce a feeling as though someone had their foot on the brake every time you tried to accelerate. It would basically jam up the differential and prevent the axles from turning. If thats how it feels, I would certainly try throwing it from foward to reverse a few times, stepping on the gas a little each time to try and get the pin to break loose from the parking gear and retract. The pin moves with the selector linkage, when the gear selector is set to 1 then you should have the most force pulling the pin away from the parking gear, so throwing it from reverse to first and pumping the gas each time would be your best bet.

[pcmos]

If that doesn't work then there are any number of things that could be wrong, if the engine is revving freely as if in neutral then she could have stripped out the splines on the final drive sungear shaft. If the car feels jammed but won't break free then she may have sheared the pin off inside the final drive housing which would result in almost certain destruction of your differential if someone doesn't get inside and fish out the pieces. Either way, unless your comfortable pulling most of your passenger side suspension and axle and the differential housing cover, your probably in for a visit to a trans shop.