It was a typical day at work until the manager told me to drive to a nearby store’s parking lot to help out a customer with her car. She’d recently purchased it, and suddenly it was unable to go into park. I headed over and quickly confirmed that not only could it not go into park, but wouldn’t fully move into reverse either. I tried the shift lock override just in case it was the issue, but it wasn’t. Then I looked under the hood.

The shift lever inside the car is connected with a cable to a lever on the transmission. When I looked at the transmission I quickly saw the problem: a walnut had fallen down in front of the lever, preventing it from moving into the reverse or park positions. I was able to squeeze my hand down in and pulled the walnut out, and the problem was resolved, and I had a very happy customer.

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-Dan