# Suburban difficulty shifting into gear on hill

**URL:** <https://community.cartalk.com/t/suburban-difficulty-shifting-into-gear-on-hill/3643>\
**Category:** Maintenance/Repairs\
**Tags:** transmissions, shifters\
**Created:** [August 25, 2007, 5:08pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/suburban-difficulty-shifting-into-gear-on-hill/3643 "2007-08-25T17:08:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jfbonini](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@jfbonini](https://community.cartalk.com/u/jfbonini)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2007, 5:08pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/suburban-difficulty-shifting-into-gear-on-hill/3643/1 "2007-08-25T17:08:17Z")

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Our 2003 2 wheel drive suburban is having difficulty shifting into gear when we start the car if we are on a hill. What is the liekly cause?

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**Author:** ![BustedKnuckles](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/bustedknuckles/32/25_2.png) [@BustedKnuckles](https://community.cartalk.com/u/BustedKnuckles)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2007, 6:18pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/suburban-difficulty-shifting-into-gear-on-hill/3643/2 "2007-08-25T18:18:49Z")

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I’ve seen this a lot with cars and trucks that don’t have the parking brake applied tightly when parked on hills. This forces the parking prawl inside the transmission to support a large load. The prawl can easily be bent or mis-shapen this way. Then, it simply gets harder and harder to get it out of ‘Park’.

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**Author:** ![jfbonini](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@jfbonini](https://community.cartalk.com/u/jfbonini)\
**Post date:** [August 25, 2007, 7:52pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/suburban-difficulty-shifting-into-gear-on-hill/3643/3 "2007-08-25T19:52:04Z")

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thank you very much for the response, it makes sense