2004 civic coupe with Automatic transmission. I think I know the problem but looking for advice on how to fix.

My Daughter's ^%*&%^ ex Boyfriend slammed the car into park while she was pulling away from a stoplight. The car will start but the key will not move to the off position to remove the key. The accessories are on all the time and drains the battery. The Shifter now slides from park to reverse to neutral to drive and back without having to pull the little switch. My guess is that there is a switch in the "shift console" that is preventing the ignition from releasing to the "off position" because the car is not in park.

Can someone give me any pointers on how to fix this temporarily until I can get whatever parts in need to fix it permanently? (I assume I have to pull all the trim for the center console)

(BTW, the Stealership wants $120 just to diagnose the problem)

Thanks in advance.
Ken

 

My civic ignition switch wouldn't turn to off or if it did it was hard to turn to the on position, but that ended up being the lock was seizing up. Not sure what is causing your problems.

 

You have the right idea. There should be a park pin switch and the interlock solenoid. There are also other broken things in there since the push button to move the lever through the range of travel is independent of the switch and the ignition interlock. I would head to a junkyard and grab a whole new assembly and cross my fingers that the transmission, park pawl, shifter cable and engine mounts, didn't suffer any damage. The whole shifter assembly can probably had from a junkyard pretty cheap, under $40 I would imagine. I have a 5 spd, so that's the extent of my knowledge on the issue.

Does the indicator on the dash display the correct gear selection (trans range switch)?

If this was my car, I think I'd be too busy cleaning up a murder scene to diagnose the problem.

 

OK a little bit more info. The gear indicator on the dash does show that it is in park. (And the other gears.
​​​
But another thing I noticed I don't need to pull the little lever in order to shift out of park. My daughter told me it has been like that over a year.

I think I need a side view in order to see some of the mechanical switches.

I didn't get to take the full center console out. Hopefully I'll get more of a chance to look at it this weekend.