My civic is hard to get into and out of park. I am able to drive but it is hard to move the shift when it is in the Reverse and Park area. I’m hoping it is something simple because I am student poor!! Thanks for your help.
Make sure you put parking brake on BEFORE you put lever in park, see if this helps
Since you likely want to check the cheap and easy things first, I would take apart the whole housing/console for the shift lever and thoroughly clean it out. I’m not certain of the set up in the '96 Civic, but I once bought a used car with a shifter that didn’t like to move. It just turned out to be the case that so much crap had been spilled onto the console that everything was dirty and sticky with old food, soda, coffee…whatever. Unpleasant to be sure, but I got it all cleaned out and it made a big difference. Taking the console apart is often a bit of a pain, but can be figured out if you don’t work on cars much. Just allow some time and patience. If you do this, get a spray can of lithium grease and use it to lube up any moving parts under there while you have the console off.
If that isn’t an issue for some reason or you clean it and it doesn’t work you’ll need to start checking out all of the linkages between the shifter and transmission. It will start there under the console and end up outside under the hood.
Spray some WD-40 lube down the shifter lever at the rubber boot. If you experience any improvement either spray more lube in the same area or take the shifter apart and clean all the parts. That should not be nec. Good luck.