Just arrived home and turned the engine off with the box in gear. Now the engine will not start and the key is stuck in the ignition. If I open the drivers door the alarm goes off as if it thinks the engine is running. The display shows it in D and only the ignition and brake warning lights stay on.

HELP

Welcome to the site Len! You could do with listing what model etc youre having problems with.:)

Is there not a shift lockout button near the stick?

Usually under a flap.

Open the flap and press button.

You should be able to get into park and this should allow the key to be released also.

Thanks for that, but I tried to force the lever from drive and it went into neutral. The car then started and the lever moved through the gears selector as normal. It feels like a mechanical issue rather than electronic. Maybe the selector mechanism is starting to seize up, time will tell but at least I know how to get it going in the short term.

So are you saying that everything is working now as before?

I should have actually posted that the lockout button is designed so you can get a non-running car into neutral (not park - my bad) in order to allow moving it onto a trailer (as automatic cars should never be towed more than very short distances to avoid damage to the torque converter) so that functioned as it should.

I would suggest you could start by getting the shift position sensor checked.

This tells the car where the gear lever is and if it thinks the car is in anything other than neutral or park then it will not allow the car to start for safety reasons.