Immobilised By Auto Gearbox Fault ?

[Guest jerry]

Hi everyone. My Galaxy (petrol, auto) is being immobilised, but my normally excellent local mechanic is flummoxed by the problem. He says that the gearbox control unit (electronic box on bottom of box) is constantly reading "1st gear" no matter what position the shift lever is in. He therefore thinks that this unit is stopping the car from starting. The unit is

[Guest fredt]

Are you sure its not the inhibitor switch on the shift lever playing up? it may be worth your while unpluging it and shorting it out to check its operating correctly?

do a search on the topic its been covered a couple of times before

[Ivor_E_Tower]

Definitely check the inhibitor switch, down under the selector cover somewhere. As fredt says, this has come up quite a few times on this forum now.

[Denis]

Jerry you don't say what year your car is but I can confirm from experience with my T reg 2.3, as Ivor and Fredt have pointed out, the inhibitor switch does cause problems. Though I'm petty sure it's not a switch but an optical sensor (led and photodiode) in a plastic housing so it's difficult to 'short out' as such.

 

In my case, pressing the gear selector sideways would make the fault come and go and adjusting the inhibitor 'switch' screw (locked with an orange sealant) cured the problem.

[dipsomaniac]

How do you remove the plastic to get to the inhibitor switch?