Why is gear shift stuck in park on 2002 fordzx2?

Answer 1

I have the same problem with my Ford Escort. there are two sensors for the gear shifter. this is a safety devise so you must put on the brake to put the car into gear. the one sensor is on the brake peddle you will see two buttons, on is the brake lite and the other is the safety for the gear shift. The other sensor is that is connected to the one on the brake is to the right of the gear shift. (it looks like a plunger with a box on top of it. ) To by pass this problem, if indeed this is your issue, there is a cap on the plate of the gear box. It will be top right of the gear shifter. take the cap off, and put a screw driver down in the hole, this will by pass the sensors. This is a quick fix, you will need to have it repaired,

No, joke, was at a wendy's drive-thru at rush hour, 2001 Ford escort zx2 will not engage to get out of gear. People honking at us getting mad. Boss of store is trying to pick front end of car up to move it out of the way(piece of crap). My mechanic says this is a common problem for this car. He by-passed the safety mechanism, when you engage the brake it releases to allow your trans to go into gear, and so now i will never have the problem again, it can be moved out of gear while in park, but it beats paying $360 bucks to put the safety mechanism back in for it to repeat the problem. Or you can save yourself some money and pourgas all over it, light a match and blow it to kingdom come. (that was my next option if the first one didn't fix it!)