Pontiac Bonneville '94

My car was running fine. I drove it 2-3 miles city & freeway a week ago to make sure. I was going to lend it to a friend and handed him the keys at a different location. When I got home he showed me that he was unable to move the car out of Park. I got in and the motor started fine. I checked and the battery was showing at the normal level,
but I too could not budge the car out of Park. That was a few days ago.

Today I went out to start the car up and to my surprise, the battery is completely drained. The battery is only about 17 months old. I previously had had the motor rebuilt a couple of years ago and the car hasn’t been driven but 2-3 thousand miles since.

Any ideas what the problem may be? Any advice as to what kind of mechanic should look at it? (the friend admitted to pushing buttons but since I wasn’t there I don’t know if that was before he tried to move out of Park or after).

Some cars have a safety switch on the brake pedal that require the brake pedal to be depressed in order to get the shifter out of PARK. I would guess your car has that safety feature. There may be a problem with the switch if that is the case. It may be that this issue is causing the battery discharge also. Any good shop should be able to find out what is causing the problems.