I drove my 1999 Expedition into my garage today and found that my gear shifter is now stuck in drive. It will only move between 1,2, & Drive. It won't move into neutral and it makes a scratchy sound when I move it. I can’t remove the key and I can’t start it again. Has anyone else heard of this happening?

Yesterday, my truck was diagnosed as likely having a broken “bend door” which is preventing it from changing between hot and cold air. This was estimated to cost $1200 to repair. The bend door is apparently extremely difficult to access in an Expedition. I was originally planning on driving it Monday to get this fixed, but it looks like it will now require a tow truck.

Does anyone have any wisdom that they can share about either condition? Do you think that the shifter problem may have be related to a mechanic digging around the dash board when they diagnosed the faulty bend door? Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Jason

 

You have a blend door acutaor problem, albeit a difficult repair I doubt seiously it is 1200 dollars. Sometime you can reach this if you access behind radio. As for not being able to get into neutral or park it sounds as though the park rod may have damage in transmission.

 

The shifter problem is the actual cable. I have replaced several of them.

 

Thanks for the info. How difficult is it to replace the shift lever cable? Is this something that I might be able to do myself? Right now, the truck is in my garage and is stuck in drive. I'm faced with calling a tow truck to extract it from my garage and towing it somewhere to get repaired.

Regarding the blend door, I was told that it would require 8-10 hours to repair and would require removing the whole dash. I've read that it is difficult with an Explorer and is exceptionally difficult with an Expedition and requires the removal of one of the seats.

This summer, I had the intermittent problem where the air conditioner would only blow slightly cool air through the defroster. The mechanic tinkered with vacuum hoses and got it to work properly. Is there any chance that this may have been caused by a faulty blend door actuator?

This truck has been remarkably reliable until now. I work out of the house and it stays in a covered garage during the day. I get all of the scheduled maintenance, but it seems to be falling apart now. I hope that this stops.


Jason

 

Update: The gear shifter problem was indeed due to a broken cable. Only the blend door actuator needed to be replaced, and not the blend door itself. The total cost to replace the gear shifter cable and the blend door actuator was a little over $750, which included a $70 tow truck fee.

Jason

 

It's great to see that at least all Ford Expeditions have the same common problems... my '98 with 187K- replaced two coil packs, a cable to put it through the gears and now the blend door actuator... makes life predictable...

 

The shifting lever is stuck in the park position of my 99 Expedition, but I believe the transmission is still in drive, so the car will not start and it drifts unless the emergency brake is on. We drove somewhere, then the lever moved very easily and did not click when I moved the lever into park. The lever seemes loose like nothing was connected. Now it won't start and the lever won't move out of park. I assume it must now be towed to a garage for repairs. Any ideas ?

 

How difficult and expensive is it to replace the shift cable ? Can I do it myself or how expensive would it be for the dealer to replace ?

 

Before you go to the dealer, maybe you could go under the vehicle and see if the cable just lost it's adjustment, broke or is neither and maybe the problem is somewhere else.

 

Update - we removed the shift cable. It was much easier than expected. I called the autoparts store to see if they have a new one, but I was told it is a dealer item. I will get one tomorrow. Found the problem. The plastic sleeve of the shift cable was broken near the end at the steering column. The metal cable is shiny and new and not broken, just the short plastic sleeve the cable runs through. Here's the other issue......there was black electrical tape wrapped around the broken plastic piece attempting to hold it together. Aparently it worked OK until the other day when it fell apart. My Expedition has always been taken to the same dealer for service, and 3 months ago the dealer had the Expedition for 2 days so they could take apart the entire dashboard to replace the blend door and actuator. I am seriously wondering if they broke this part and attempted to cover up their mistake by taping it back together with electrical tape. I can not think of any other reasonable explanation. If this is true it makes me upset and I will lose confidence in my dealer. When I go there tomorrow I am taking the broken part to show them. I don't suppose they will agree with my guess as to what happened and give me a free replacement part. What do you people think of that ?