Lever to change from parking to drive, neutral, etc. Is sticky. HELP!

LYMKB

MEMBER
2003 CHEVROLET SUBURBAN
6 CYL
AUTOMATIC
110,000 MILES

Lever to change from parking to drive, neutral, etc. Is sticky. Sometimes when you go to switch from park or reverse it doesn't want to change into the designated slot. I'd appreciate it if you could lead me to the correct area to look at. Could it be the steering box or the gear box. If it has one; or do you think the transmission is about to fail?

Friday, December 27th, 2013 AT 3:58 PM

3 Replies

CARADIODOC

MECHANIC
34,190 POSTS

Do you mean it just takes a lot of effort to make is slowly ooze into position, or you can't get it to move at all? If it works hard through all the gears, the cable probably just needs to be lubricated. The worst would be the cable is fraying and sticking in the casing. If that's what's happening, it will likely break soon and you'll be stuck in whatever gear it's in. Ask to have the cable lubricated at your next oil change. That is usually considered a part of regular maintenance and is done with the oil change, but you have to specifically ask for it, otherwise it's not done automatically.

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Friday, December 27th, 2013 AT 5:02 PM

LYMKB

MEMBER
2 POSTS

It sometimes gets stuck in the gear and lever gets really stiff like if it's stuck, if it is the cable you are talking about; what is it called?

Thanks soo much for the help

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Friday, December 27th, 2013 AT 5:20 PM

CARADIODOC

MECHANIC
34,190 POSTS

There's probably a technical name for it but we generally call it a "shifter cable". It might be a dealer-only item because the auto parts stores don't get a lot of requests for these.

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Friday, December 27th, 2013 AT 6:01 PM