GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

My 2009 Vibe GT just recently started getting randomly stuck in park. Sometimes the ABS light flashes when this happens. The first time it happened I restarted the car a few times and the lockout solenoid disengaged. The second time I was at a gas station and had to pull the cover and release the lockout manually.

I dug into the dash to see how much hassle it would be to get to the solenoid and test it directly or remove it altogether (only vehicle I've ever owned that even has that and it's unnecessary imo) but it's buried annoying deep in there. For now I have it secured in the unlocked position and the car drives fine but I'd rather do it right.

There is a brake switch somewhere right?

When I push the brake on the vibe, I hear a click, so something has recognized this and releases the shifter. So maybe that is bad or flaky?


Scary story. I had a mercury SUV that had a brake switch. This is what is used to tell the cruise control to turn off. Well, mine was bad and I was going 70MPH at cruise then braked to take a 180 degree banked turn off the freeway. The cruise did not turn off. I was braking over and over and it wouldn't stop. We were all screaming as we approached the turn, but luckily it turned off. It was diagnosed later at the dealer as a bad brake switch module.

WHEW!

cigvibe wrote: ↑Tue Feb 22, 2022 8:05 pm There is a brake switch somewhere right?

Can't really chime on this one at all as ALL my vehicles are manual transmissions, thus they should NEVER get stuck in park!

But a funny story here to go with the topic (not so funny to the car that got hit) ..... Back some 45 years ago or so, my baby sister at that time was a happy-go-lucky 2 year old toddler. Mom was out in the front yard gardening and lil sis decided she was going to go play inside the family station wagon. It was a 1968 Dodge Monaco and I believe was one of the last years with a non-locking steering wheel. Anyways she managed to pull the shifter from park, into Neutral, and the car proceeded to roll down our driveway until it made it into the street and hit our neighbors car pretty goo. Lil sis was sited and officially had her first accident Fast forward to today where those brake switches are now commonplace on all automatics, she would NOT have had that accident.