A week after I bought my car, drove to work, and suddenly it wouldn't shift into park! Looked under the car and saw the problem immediately: turns out, the bolts for the shifter linkage fell out somehow! (pic attached)

Or did they? I'm just curious if this could happen on its own. I had taken my car to get an inspection done, and asked them to change the oil while I was there - only because its technically against my lease to drain oil at my apartment, but since then I've said screw it and done it anyways.


So is there any chance that a shady mechanic loosened these bolts at all? I just cannot imagine transmission bolts working their way out and falling out completely all on their own. Although I could see it happening due to the force from this shifter bracket when you shift between park and drive, I'm just not 100% convinced. What's your guys' opinions?

 

Happened to me when my car was still a V6/auto. I only lost one bolt though. I had had the transmission serviced shortly before so I'm sure they just didn't tighten them enough.

 

Ok. They must have been coming loose for a long, long time. The car was pretty ***** when I first got it (re: wires just twisted together and wrapped in electrical tape, junk like that)

Quite a bit of evidence that a P.O. wasn't great at maintaining or just plain careless/abusive. Luckily nothing too terrible yet and I've been able to repair most of it so far.

 

Since the trans pan bolts are only tightened to 11ish ft/lbs, they can work out ever time with the back and fourth movement of the shift cable pressing and pulling on it. When you reinstall the bolts, put a small amount of blue locktite on them and torque to spec.