Big problem. Need immediate help!!!

I went to Autozone and bought a shift knob for my 2003 Alero (automatic). the shift knob was for automatics so i figured... hey no problem! well. i took off the alero shift knob with no problem. put on the new one. tightened up the bolts on the knob (with an alan wrench), and it seemed to work fine. that was until... i parked my car. i went to take my keys out of the ignition and it wouldnt release the keys. the dial was on P. and the shifter was on the P as well. i couldnt figure out why this was happening. I had a buddy of mine who is a lot smarter than I try to look at it, and he had the same problem I did. I decided to chalk it up as a loss, and call it a night and throw back on the original shifter.... but of course, things are never that easy. i put the shifter on, hit the staple into place... and wouldn't ya know it... it wouldnt change gears. no matter what i tried the shifter would not change gears.... so now im stuck with an alero without a shift knob, i can shift by pressing down on the white rod but that just doesn't cut the mustard for me..i've been putting a lot of work and energy into my car and now i screwed up my shifter. What the hell should I do??

[r53silver91s]

I changed my shifter and had problems so I went back to the stock one.

The stock one is on and the clip is in, but every once in awhile it does what you said yours is doing, when it does this I just hit down on the top of it a little bit, not very hard at all, and it will shift then.

I know it sounds stupid but you can try that.

I tried hitting it, slamming down on it, tapping it, shaking it, jerking it. hell now i don't want this to get x-rated so i'll stop right there... lol. But It wouldn't budge. Is there something I could have possibly lost? my friend mentioned that something could of came out the shifter it's self when i took it off initially that is causing it not to function properly. but i don't recall seeing any extra pieces. i figured it was a pretty simple mechanism... well shoot. is there an extra piece i'm missing?

[brsexton]

Nope there is no springs or anything that could have came out when you took that shifter off. I took mine off and replaced it with one from a 03 Sunfire. Of course it works exactly like our factory shifters but its just a different design. What you may want to do is just take it to the dealer and pretend that you have no idea what went wrong :rolleyes: .

[johny_boy32]

i had the same problem with my ractive shift know...tight it up a little more and make sure the knob is down all the way on the plastic white peice thats in the cented...then if all else fails just move the shifter forward and back once and it will go back into park...my wore in and works great now

thanks, i'm going to take it to the dealer in about an hour, i'll let you guys know how it turns out. i think i'm going to take the after market shiftknob back. it doesnt seem to work right. i'll try again later... maybe i'll go with the one you have john. the one i got doesn't even have a company name on the packaging... i should of used my "buyer beware" goggles on this one. but i was too excited when i saw it (looks just like the ractive aluminum one, except it's not). next time i'll be more careful. but just so everyone who hasnt already tried can know. DO NOT REMOVE YOUR SHIFT KNOB UNLESS YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY SURE OF WHAT YOU'RE DOING. because... i thought i was, and i obviously wasn't. lol. thanks again guys.

[johny_boy32]

another good beware would be dont buy chaep...your gonna pay more money to get it replaced or to fix it than what it would be worth to just get the good one. Don't buy cheap...its doenst pay in the long run

well see. the knob was 19.95 which was the same price as the ractive shift knob of the same design.. so i thought it should be just as good. guess i was wrong? anyway, i took it back. got my money back. dropped the alero off at the gm mech. he couldnt figure out what the hell i did to it. lol. but he said he'd fix the problem whatever it was but it would take a couple days. since i still have the warranty, i got myself a rental car and i'm not paying a cent for my little mishap.

well atleast i learned a lesson out of all of this...

"Even if it's easy, Don't mess with something in your Alero if you're not sure what you're doing. Because if you break it, you might just be driving a Chevy Malibu tomorrow"

My rental car is a 1998 Chevy Malibu. bleh.

[Silentalero]

i vote go drifting


thats what i did when i had the GA and windstart rentals, lol

now drifting with a minivan!! cant get better than that, haha

too bad you already took the shift knob back and took the car to the dealer, I could have saved you the trouble. Mine did the same thing because I mounted the knob too low and it would not allow the button inside the shifter to release all the way and allow me to remove the key. I just removed the knob and moved it up just a little. Now it works great, haven't had any problems with it. As for the stock shift knob not working, it sounds like you made the button in the shifter get stuck or maybe the shift knob was not down all the way where it could engage the button. I'm not quite sure on that one.

Ha, my heater broke and since its been so cold I take my moms 99 chevy malibu when she doesn't need it. Its not a bad car, just ugly.

Not sure if it's related, but incase...
- I have a 5spd, which, to take the key out, you have to put it in reverse (what's with that!). Problem for me was, the day I bought the car (within an hour) (I bought a 2000 last summer) the key, once out, wouldn't turn again - which meant that I couldn't take it out reverse! Had to get a tow...!!! Turns out my ingition/key assembly stuff wouldn't read my key properly anymore so my gear was stuck...had to put in a whole new key assembly stuff in the dash. I still have to push in deep into reverse to get the key out.