Two Weeks Old & In The Shop

[cains10]

Couldn't get the transmission into Park and remove the key. Now in the shop for a shifter replacement. Is the replacement shifter an upgraded part provided by a Service Bulletin? The dealer said this is a common problem. I would have thought new cars made 1/2 a year into production would have upgraded parts for common problems installed in production.

[jwight]

Interesting; if you have a fairly recent build date this problem was supposedly "corrected at the factory."

[Broken Kid]

Originally Posted by jwight

Interesting; if you have a fairly recent build date this problem was supposedly "corrected at the factory."

That's what they told me when I got mine this week...

[msjohnson1974]

I think this may be somewhat dealer dependant for the ones missed by the factory... I have an 11/07 build car and mine was delivered to me with the new shifter (I didn't even know it until I saw a post here with pics of the old one). Perhaps some dealers are anxious to make deliveries, don't have the part, and are just waiting for failures to fix them.

I have 2500 miles and have had no problems with the shifter.

[SmartCard]

no, if the factory has switched over to the new shifter at a certain date, at this point in time there should be none "missed by the factory". This is interesting, I wonder if there is a secondary problem that's not related to the troublesome ring that was replaced?

[mvukovich]

Did the dealership give you a loaner car? Thanks

[Alustiza]

This entire shifter thing has gone on long enough. It is time for all of the cars to be recalled and a new shifter installed. I am over 300 miles from a dealer, and if the shifter in my car goes I will be totally screwed, and pissed. All the people out there who have had shifter problems need to write the The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and let them know about this problem. I have seen enough complaints on this forum to justify a recall, and I have never heard of a car having transmission shifting problems like the smart car does.

[anthony94114]

I doubt they'd give a loaner. My car was out 22 days this time for other warranty/mechanical issues and got no loaner offered.

[bottlerocket]

We did a count on this, the number of people that had trouble with the shifter vs the number of people on this board who have had no problems was pretty small.

Sucks that people are still having problems, however as said before all new cars have a few here and there.

[deaconpark]

Originally Posted by anthony94114

I doubt they'd give a loaner. My car was out 22 days this time for other warranty/mechanical issues and got no loaner offered.

Actually Anthony, I had the shifter problem early on and took it to my dealership in Cleveland and they were more than happy to give me a loaner... MB C350 or some such nonsense.... I wasn't really impressed with the car.. but hey, it was free
Russ