A friend of mine has a '98 2wd limited 4runner. The button on the gear selector will not press in and allow the transmission to be changed from park. Does anyone know what the cause of this might be and how to fix it?

 

supposedly you can take off some of the plastic and all around the shifter and there's something that you can stick your key in and it will "unlock" the shifter...not 100% sure about this, but it happened to my buddy's 2000 limited 2wd 4runner while he was launching a boat, and he said he did something like this...

 

The shift lock has an electric solenoid that is controlled by the brake light circuit. First check the brake lights, if they're not working then either the STOP fuse has gone or the switch on the pedal is bad. If the lights are working then the solenoid may have gone bad. You should be able to shift by lifting the samll black plastic plug at the front of the shifter, and pushing something in there to release the shifter. Like Mike said a key usually works.

 

^ x2.

If one of your brake light bulbs is out or the fuse to them is blown, the vehicle will not shift out of park when the button on the gear selector is depressed. This is a safety feature installed by toyota.

Until either the fuse is replaced or the bulb is replaced (which ever one is the problem), you'll have to get a screwdriver, pry open the clip next to the gear selector and manually unlock the transmission. (I've had to do this before on a friend's 4Runner before.)

Once the brake light issue is fixed, you will be able to shift the gear selector out of park like normal.

A friend of mine had this happen on his '98. Come to find out, it was faulty wiring on the trailer that caused his brake lights to short out, thus blowing the fuse. This in turn would not let him shift out of park.

Talk about a strict safety feature...

 

x3

Im betting its the switch on the brake pedal. If it is its a pretty easy job to do.

 

+1 on checking the fuses. I hooked a trailer up and apparently the trailer wiring had a short killing my fuse for my brake lights. I didn't know and couldn't figure out why I couldn't get out of park. I just swapped the fuse for the stereo untill i could get a new fuse.

 

thanks for all of the suggestions and info.