Failed Console Gear Shift Lever

[artificial_airspeed]

2021 F-150 Lariat Powerboost. The wife and I are on vacation from DFW, TX currrently in Asheville, NC touring the Smokey Mountains. Today while driving the Blue Ridge Pkwy, my truck would not let me shift from D to P while trying to park at a roadside overlook. The D position light on the console shifter assembly started blinking rapidly. I tried to troubleshoot but ultimately just shut the truck off and let it sit a while with the parking brake set but still in D… When I returned to the truck, I turned on the ignition to accessory and the shift lever automatically moved forward to P on its own….. After that everything seemed normal and I had no issues for a while. However that changed this evening. We were arriving into a parking lot and again I could not shift from D to P. This time though, I got a warning message on the cluster that said “Park not available, set parking brake before leaving vehicle”. I tried to let it sit like before, but didn’t work. I then did the Emergency Towing Procedure by manually engaging neutral so the truck would roll. I tried all kinds of things to get it to wake up and go to P so I could start it and drive it to Ford in Asheville….. Nothing worked, but I tried to troubleshoot further while Roadside Assistance dispatched a tow. While I was troubleshooting and reading forum posts etc… I even used Forscan to read the DTC’s and do a module reset on the GSM (Gear Selector Module). Again nothing working, but I tried to move from D to P one more time and all of a sudden the lever literally snapped. With very little pressure from myself. I guess I had fatigued it by trying to move it from D to P so much :-/ …..

I admit I shouldn’t have tried to keep troubleshooting but I didn’t want to be stranded halfway across the country from my home state… ugh. So now it’s at Asheville Ford and the Service Dept isn’t open for a few days due to Labor Day. What a mess. These console shifters are flimsy pieces of crap with electronic logic issues that cause unresolvable faults.

Now some questions for folks that may have had similar scenarios while traveling out of state….. What’s the protocol? There are no loaner vehicles these days….. Will Ford allow for a rental car reimbursement? It may be weeks before a part and fix is available due to backorders… So I guess we’ll have to drive back to Texas in a rental and then I’ll have to drive or fly back out here to Asheville, NC when it’s repaired. Completely at a loss with this situation. Sucks!

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[Poalpo]

Crazy, i feel your pain. Why did ford have to go with this folding shifter gimmick, i almost wish they went ram 1500 route with that ugly gear shifter switch instead-seems more reliable. or just stuck with the column shifter on higher trims. Hopefully this part is readily available and can be shipped to Asheville express.

 

[Pedaldude]

Console shifters are useless unless you are doing burn-outs, 180's and reverse 180's. Even then, you shouldn't be doing that in newer cars. Stick with your late 70's Camaros for that kind of thing. The folding feature is a solution to a problem already solved by column shifters. It's just another thing to malfunction and go wrong.

Even the column shifter feels really cheap and easily broken. No doubt, they felt that the shift by wire technology justified something as robust as a video game controller. The only problem is decades of muscle memory using stamped and welded cable actuated shifters is hard to unlearn.

The push button shifters are also problematic for user interface reasons. I am not a fan of the drive mode dial as it's easy to overshoot the intended mode and have the truck automatically go into 4X4 when you are on dry pavement. Especially since you have to do it every time you start the truck, which gets old if you are constantly trying to put it in Eco mode.

 

[xtraman122]

I'll add to the list of people who think the shifter is a complete POS. I haven't had mine "fail", but it truly feels cheap, having to make it fold down to use the work surface is very annoying, and it never feels like it clicks into the right positions to match up to what gear you're supposed to be in when going into reverse. I constantly have to be very careful to just inch it forward from D to R or else it'll just want to go straight to P, other times it'll actually be in N when it looks like it should be in R.

I agree that they should have just done one of the little rotary things. It looks sort of boring, and doesn't feel like you're shifting anything, but it's certainly out of the way and unobtrusive. It would have let them incorporate the work surface SO much easier, having to fold down the shifter means I almost never end up using mine because I usually have stuff in that little spot the shifter folds into.

 

[artificial_airspeed]

Morning all, thank you for the replies. I agree I’d like the rotary knob option more than this dinky lever. I’d even take a push button setup. Less moving parts, less points of potential failure.

I spoke with Asheville Ford this morning and they are over 1 week from even being able to look at it. So we’ll be heading back to TX in a rental car most likely. Hopefully Ford will reimburse us for it. I guess I’ll fly back later and pickup the truck when it’s ready. Perfect shi*storm.

 

[F-150 Prius]

Morning all, thank you for the replies. I agree I’d like the rotary knob option more than this dinky lever. I’d even take a push button setup. Less moving parts, less points of potential failure.

I spoke with Asheville Ford this morning and they are over 1 week from even being able to look at it. So we’ll be heading back to TX in a rental car most likely. Hopefully Ford will reimburse us for it. I guess I’ll fly back later and pickup the truck when it’s ready. Perfect shi*storm.

I don't think Asheville Ford is reacting appropriately. When an owner is not local, they should prioritize the vehicle should go on a hoist immediately – existing work gets interrupted and postponed till this priority gets resolved (and Ford should be supporting the dealing with immediate diagnosis and overnight delivery of parts, which looks like just replace the whole shifter assembly and see if that fixes the problem.) I don't expect them to be operational on Labor Day, but within the first hour of Tuesday, they should have parts ordered and have the vehicle back on the road Tuesday or Wednesday.
I also wonder why they made the shifter such a complex thing. I'm deliberately very careful with it. I would have been fine with a knob on the dash.
I remember the early reviewers remarking on the noise of the motor in the shifter. The unit in mine is almost silent.
The shifter on the column is just as complex (for the function of shifting itself into Park) so that at least doesn't have to fold and would mean the high end trim could be six-seater or at least better workspace.
I resigned myself to this pickup being full of chips and motors … I don't want to own it out of warranty and I hope Ford just plain makes so many that the quality and reliability is 100%.
As for loaners, that's a dealer-specific thing … some dealers will pull a pickup off their lot, others will have a loaner "fleet" of cost-effective vehicles. I've had all kinds of near new loaners including a Ranger, which is a very decent, modern vehicle these days.

Also, please get the tech to keep in touch by email and send pics of whatever failed. It will be useful for others to know if there's a roadside fix to get going. I'm guessing there's a "sacrificial" linkage in the shifter to break to protect the whole assembly.

 

[Vulnox]

I don't think those blaming the shifter are making much sense. There is nothing indicating the shifter is the issue. The fact that the truck has the light blinking and eventually said cannot shift into park indicates a problem with the actual transmission. The shifter has no physical connection to the transmission, and the problem will almost certainly be the same if it was the rotary knob like a RAM or a Fusion. You would turn the knob to P, and it would flash and tell you it can't shift to park.

That doesn't help OP obviously, can't do much for the dealership part. But I don't get the blame game on the shifter when there isn't anything he said that would tell me the shifter itself is at fault. If there was a mechanical problem with the shifter, I am pretty confident the truck couldn't tell him there was an issue shifting like it did. It would instead pick up the attempt to move to Park and when it sensed it wasn't happening, it would just put the truck in park anyway. The only reason for it not to is if there is an issue with the transmission, not the shifter.

So again, that shifter, and it's the same for the column one, has no physical mechanical connection to the transmission. It tells the transmission module to make the shift, but that module would be the one throwing a fit.

If you want to give me your VIN, I can pull up your truck in OASIS and see if it threw any codes and if it indicates a TSB for the issue. I did the same for someone with an overheat messages, and it brought up a service bulletin that the message can be ignored and will be fixed in an OTA update.

 

[artificial_airspeed]

Absolutely, that’s what I thought. I figured they’d be receptive to the situation but they were very nonchalant and basically told me “safe travels to Texas and back when we’re able to get to fixing your truck, thanks bye!”….. So I’m going to be on the phone with Ford ASAP in the morning so they can light a fire with this dealership. I don’t want to be a “line jumper” but I’m stranded and by far not local… Not to mention it’s said to be 1 hour of labor and the part # appears available in various FoMoCo parts online for overnight delivery. This seems like a no brainer to me for them to get my truck out of their service lot and make me a happy customer. We’ll see how it plays out…..

 

[F-150 Prius]

I tried to move from D to P one more time and all of a sudden the lever literally snapped. With very little pressure from myself. I guess I had fatigued it by trying to move it from D to P so much :-/ …

there isn't anything he said that would tell me the shifter itself is at fault

I think "snap" suggests it's the shifter mechanism. I imagine the shifter is just a decorative switch and doesn't actually have any physical connection.

 

[diesel97]

I don't think those blaming the shifter are making much sense. There is nothing indicating the shifter is the issue. The fact that the truck has the light blinking and eventually said cannot shift into park indicates a problem with the actual transmission. The shifter has no physical connection to the transmission, and the problem will almost certainly be the same if it was the rotary knob like a RAM or a Fusion. You would turn the knob to P, and it would flash and tell you it can't shift to park.

That doesn't help OP obviously, can't do much for the dealership part. But I don't get the blame game on the shifter when there isn't anything he said that would tell me the shifter itself is at fault. If there was a mechanical problem with the shifter, I am pretty confident the truck couldn't tell him there was an issue shifting like it did. It would instead pick up the attempt to move to Park and when it sensed it wasn't happening, it would just put the truck in park anyway. The only reason for it not to is if there is an issue with the transmission, not the shifter.

So again, that shifter, and it's the same for the column one, has no physical mechanical connection to the transmission. It tells the transmission module to make the shift, but that module would be the one throwing a fit.

If you want to give me your VIN, I can pull up your truck in OASIS and see if it threw any codes and if it indicates a TSB for the issue. I did the same for someone with an overheat messages, and it brought up a service bulletin that the message can be ignored and will be fixed in an OTA update.

If the shifter can't send a signal (open or close contact) to the transmission then the trans doesn't know what to do.

Other threads have had the same problem and the replacement shifter solved the problem, no new trans is needed.

 

[artificial_airspeed]

I don't think those blaming the shifter are making much sense. There is nothing indicating the shifter is the issue. The fact that the truck has the light blinking and eventually said cannot shift into park indicates a problem with the actual transmission. The shifter has no physical connection to the transmission, and the problem will almost certainly be the same if it was the rotary knob like a RAM or a Fusion. You would turn the knob to P, and it would flash and tell you it can't shift to park.

That doesn't help OP obviously, can't do much for the dealership part. But I don't get the blame game on the shifter when there isn't anything he said that would tell me the shifter itself is at fault. If there was a mechanical problem with the shifter, I am pretty confident the truck couldn't tell him there was an issue shifting like it did. It would instead pick up the attempt to move to Park and when it sensed it wasn't happening, it would just put the truck in park anyway. The only reason for it not to is if there is an issue with the transmission, not the shifter.

So again, that shifter, and it's the same for the column one, has no physical mechanical connection to the transmission. It tells the transmission module to make the shift, but that module would be the one throwing a fit.

If you want to give me your VIN, I can pull up your truck in OASIS and see if it threw any codes and if it indicates a TSB for the issue. I did the same for someone with an overheat messages, and it brought up a service bulletin that the message can be ignored and will be fixed in an OTA update.

Hi Vulnox, sorry I missed this reply. I believe it may be something with the GSM and it’s communication with the shifter and other components in the truck. Definitely a digital problem possibly caused by a mechanical problem within the shifter assembly. Speculation at this point. For example, while the shifter was stuck in D and blinking, the truck thought it was in P as indicated on the cluster. Very odd. A mismatch if you will. There is a TSB out for it and the TSB states to replace the shifter assembly and reprogram the GSM. Ultimately me messing with it physically broke it as it’s a fragile stalk of plastic, I certainly didn’t mean to snap the stalk but it happened. It’s just crazy that it interlocks erroneously into a gear position like that, clearly resulting in oafs like myself accidentally breaking the plastic lever….. When it snapped, it revealed a ribbon cable that runs from the assembly up into the handle. Probably for the manual +\- shift buttons and the button on the back for moving gears.

There we’re definitely faults detected when I scanned with Forscan. My VIN is below if you are able to pull them from Oasis that would be awesome.

1FTFW1CDXMFB86257

 

[artificial_airspeed]

Applicable TSB

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2021/MC-10194431-0001.pdf

 

[Vulnox]

Hi Vulnox, sorry I missed this reply. I believe it may be something with the GSM and it’s communication with the shifter and other components in the truck. Definitely a digital problem possibly caused by a mechanical problem within the shifter assembly. Speculation at this point. For example, while the shifter was stuck in D and blinking, the truck thought it was in P as indicated on the cluster. Very odd. A mismatch if you will. There is a TSB out for it and the TSB states to replace the shifter assembly and reprogram the GSM. Ultimately me messing with it physically broke it as it’s a fragile stalk of plastic, I certainly didn’t mean to snap the stalk but it happened. It’s just crazy that it interlocks erroneously into a gear position like that, clearly resulting in oafs like myself accidentally breaking the plastic lever….. When it snapped, it revealed a ribbon cable that runs from the assembly up into the handle. Probably for the manual +\- shift buttons and the button on the back for moving gears.

There we’re definitely faults detected when I scanned with Forscan. My VIN is below if you are able to pull them from Oasis that would be awesome.

1FTFW1CDXMFB86257

Thanks! While it shows the code, and different code each time, there doesn't appear to be an immediate TSB associated with the specific codes logged. Some of the other codes you can ignore, I have them as well. I think some are triggered from the truck startup and are just caused by low power conditions when starting. The Control Module has a TSB but is related to getting a message about power steering at startup, again not related to the park. Wish I could help move it along by giving you an SSM or TSB.

 

[artificial_airspeed]

Thanks! While it shows the code, and different code each time, there doesn't appear to be an immediate TSB associated with the specific codes logged. Some of the other codes you can ignore, I have them as well. I think some are triggered from the truck startup and are just caused by low power conditions when starting. The Control Module has a TSB but is related to getting a message about power steering at startup, again not related to the park. Wish I could help move it along by giving you an SSM or TSB.

no worries! Thank you for checking! Interesting to see info from the other side. I think the battery drained while in Emergency Neutral. It shows offline now in FordPass. That may be what the low power state was.

 

[xtraman122]

I don't think those blaming the shifter are making much sense. There is nothing indicating the shifter is the issue. The fact that the truck has the light blinking and eventually said cannot shift into park indicates a problem with the actual transmission. The shifter has no physical connection to the transmission, and the problem will almost certainly be the same if it was the rotary knob like a RAM or a Fusion. You would turn the knob to P, and it would flash and tell you it can't shift to park.

That doesn't help OP obviously, can't do much for the dealership part. But I don't get the blame game on the shifter when there isn't anything he said that would tell me the shifter itself is at fault. If there was a mechanical problem with the shifter, I am pretty confident the truck couldn't tell him there was an issue shifting like it did. It would instead pick up the attempt to move to Park and when it sensed it wasn't happening, it would just put the truck in park anyway. The only reason for it not to is if there is an issue with the transmission, not the shifter.

So again, that shifter, and it's the same for the column one, has no physical mechanical connection to the transmission. It tells the transmission module to make the shift, but that module would be the one throwing a fit.

If you want to give me your VIN, I can pull up your truck in OASIS and see if it threw any codes and if it indicates a TSB for the issue. I did the same for someone with an overheat messages, and it brought up a service bulletin that the message can be ignored and will be fixed in an OTA update.

His issue may very well not be the shifter like you said, but it’s absolutely a terrible design and very poorly made. There have been numerous people complaining of issues with how it’s aligned and the general functionality of it, many of us are just venting our discontent with the shifter in the thread because it’s on the subject.

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