My daughter has a 2009 Cobalt. It has the broken plastic push button that will fall out of the shifter knob from time to time. Well, this time a little white gear fell out with it and the car would no shift into park and was stuck in either drive or neutral. I was able to figure out how where the gear goes and get it back in, but now it’s as if the spring tension that was there is gone and the push button does not want to stay in anymore and the car isn’t engaging the ignition key release. The shifter goes through all the gears, but seems to catch going into park. Can I assume the plastic gear is not aligned properly and I need to keep playing trial and error until I get it in the right spot?
This is the gear I am referring to. Found someone asking about it in another forum.
I’m thinking this would be easier
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I bet the spring that was around the center hub of that gear flew off or fell into the assembly when the gear came out…
Yes, I saw that I probably will get it, the only problem with that is with the holidays I wouldn’t be able to get it until middle of the week and I was trying to get it usable until then.
You may have to invent a homebrew version of the plastic button that broke to get the entire ass’y (button, spring, gear) functioning again. If you have a chunk of plastic and a drill-operated hole saw you might be able to make something workable. No chunk of plastic? Might could make it out of wood too.
Best advice imo, park the car and wait until you can secure a commercial replacement version of the whole thing.
Skin oils can be he cause of plastic parts degrading. If you can figure out a way to prevent skin oils from coming into contact with the new plastic button, the replacement may last longer.
I used to have a 2000 Cavalier that had the same problem. Eventually the gear shift cover came off entirely. There was a thick plastic rod in the middle that I had to press down on to shift. Drove it like that for a long time