Picked up the new 2004 F150 in Oct 2003, within a few months the transmission wouldn't move out of park after the vehicle had been driving normally and then parked for awhile.Ford could not reproduce the problem at the factory and the dealer eventual used a floor model to replace the selector ( new centre cosole mounted design). I do know that at the time there were only 2 vehicles on the road in my area and we both had this problem.Mileage on the Truck was just under 10 000 Km's . I now have 38 000 Km's on the Truck and the same problem has occured.
It can be driven by removing the console cover and using the override button to get the selector out of Park.
Just wondering how many other 2004 owners out there have encountered this problem.

 

I had that problem as well. I have the column shifter...

What I noticed was it would do this right after I put it in park, hit the e-brake and let the truck settle. I was at a SLIGHT downhill (driveway type) grade when this happened. What I did was shake the heck out of my truck front to back with all my passengers like we were on a roller coaster ride...while doing that, I was trying to shift out....IT WORKED. If I come across something like this again, Im going to the dealer.

 

Are you pressing on the brake pedal? If you step on the brake pedal, you can hear clicking in the center console. I'm thinking that this is a safety control to keep from shifting out of park into drive, etc with no brakes. So either you are grabbing the shifter too soon or the release is busted.

 

Sounds like your transmission is being torque locked in park. Parking on a grade puts pressure on the parking gear and makes it very hard to shift out of park if the weight of the vehicle is resting on the park gear. This is the nature of automatic transmissions. If your truck 'settles' after putting on the parking brake, you are not applying it tight enough. The heavier your vehicle, and steeper the grade, the more trouble torque locking causes. A test for how tight you need to apply your parking brake is to stop on a hill, put your tranny in Neutral (not park) and apply the parking brake as you normally do. Take your foot off the foot brake, and if your truck rolls, your parking brake is not tight enough.


The original post sounds like a faulty brake/park interlock switch.

 

I saw a TSB on the subject. It ended up being an open fuse.

 

Thanks Guys ,
Will be going into dealer tomorrow, jumped up and down on brake( no not literally ) trying to release shift lever, no joy. The vehicle was parked level, but both times it happened it was pretty cold . The fuse through the trailer wiring is worth looking into and i will bring that up at the dealer.

 

I don't have the flow through console, but apparently, there is a manual override if the selector gets stuck in Park.

If you do a search on this you should find out more.

 

Read your owners manual again.There is a section that tells you what to do if this happens.(it is an open fuse).Apparently they knew about the problem but instead of fixing it they put a fix in the manual.Go figure.

 

It's not a problem. It's an electric solenoid locking device. Anything electric is fused. The lock is because of people that leave the car/truck running with kids inside, and it prevents the tranny from engaging without stepping on the brake first. It's called a SAFETY FEATURE.

Amazing.

 

"It's called a SAFETY FEATURE."

And a dang good one at that.

When I worked for Ma Bell we were taught to never set the transmission in park without doing the following:
Come to a full stop.
With your foot on the brake do the following
Put the transmission in Neuteral
set the Parking Brake.
Let the weight of the vehicle rest on the parking brake.
Then, and only then, put the tranny in park.
Then take your foot of the brake.

When leaving:
With foot on the brake,
Shift to neuteral.
release parking brake
Shift into gear.

It sounds like a pain, but it isn't, it quickly becomes second nature.

I still do it to this day, in all my vehicles. The F150 is my wifes first auto transmission vehicle. She now does it too. It will save your auto transmission in the long run.
If you have ever seen the parking pawl on most auto transmissions, you'd never rely on it to be the only thing holding your vehicle on a hill. It takes a lot of stress, and can fail over time. I never understood people that refuse to set the parking brake...

 

This is exactly what I do... Let the parking brake do the work. There is no way I am leaving the tranny alone to deal with the weight of this 5500 lb. beast. I becomes second nature rather quickly.

 

Thanks...sounds like a pain, seems logical and worth trying instead of getting stuck again.

Ill try that next time...thanks for the info folks...this thread was definately worth reading for me at least.

 

Lots of good input...
The first time this happened all the fuses were fine and both the Dealer and Ford factory could not find out what the problem was or even replicate it.
No fix in my owners manual , only how to override so you can get it to the dealer , guess i bought the Truck too soon .Easy enough to get too and do , but a pain in the rear end to have to do every so often.
Will post what the outcome from the dealer is this time around.

 

All sorted,
Seems there was a problem with the original design, new upgraded part installed and working fine so far. Wait for the next really cold spell and see .

 

Just for future reference, I had this problem intermitantly on my '97 F-150 and it turned out to be a broken wire on the brake light switch. Occasionally it wouldn't come out of park and after several trys, it would release. I suspected the brake light switch so I backed into my garage so that I could see the brake lights reflecting off the back wall and noticed that they weren't working every time I pressed the brake pedal. When I tried to pull the connector off the switch, the wire came off in my hand. The truck was out of waranty so I just soldered the wire back onto the connector and problem solved. My '04 has the same design so it could happen with it as well. The switch moves with the pedal so the wire breaks from repeated bending of the wires.