I have a 2001 Grand Prix GT that has been giving me lots of problems lately. I think that they may be related. First was water getting into the blower motor, so I had to replace the blower and hopefully stopped the water leak with some caulking.
Then the power locks stopped working when you put the car in gear and when you shut the car off, they work OK if you push the lock or unlock your self.
I have been having problems getting the key out of the ignition sometimes too, this seems to come and go but I found a trick on the web to use a straw to unlock the key release.
Now the latest problem is that sometimes the car won’t go into park. It will go through all of the gears but when you get to Reverse it won’t go past that into Park.
Could the locks, key sticking and not going into Park all be caused by the same problem, and if so what could it be? I have a feeling that they are all related some how!
On some cars there is a cable or rod that activates the key release when the shifter is in park. It sounds like this link is binding blocking the shifter from going into park. Alternately, there may be something wrong with the shift cable from the shifter to the transmission or something near the transmission that is blocking the shifter arm from going into park.
I agree, sounds like a problem in the steering column which is also affecting the electrical side of the ignition switch, reason for the door locks not to work.
OK, how hard would this be to check myself and how would I go about it?
Would I check this from inside the car or under the car?