Cause
Faulty park pawl position sensor
The sensor confirming whether the parking pawl has actually engaged the transmission output, which on a vehicle with electronic gear selection is a genuine safety function rather than a monitoring convenience. There is no mechanical linkage from the selector to the pawl — the module must be told the pawl moved, and if it cannot be told, it must assume the vehicle is not held.
So the response to this code is deliberately conservative. A module that cannot confirm engagement will refuse to release the pawl, refuse to engage it, or hold the electric parking brake instead, and it is right to do so. A vehicle that will not come out of park is often this sensor rather than the mechanism, which is worth knowing before anything is dismantled.
Two different faults produce similar codes and separating them matters. A sensor or circuit fault means the pawl is fine and the reporting is not. A genuinely obstructed pawl is the other case — parking on a gradient loads the pawl against the output gear hard enough that it cannot withdraw, and the sensor is then correctly reporting that it did not move. Chock the wheels and release the load before assuming the sensor is at fault; the difference is a free check and one of the two answers costs nothing at all.
Typically specialist work. Needs equipment or training most home workshops do not have.
Some of these codes mean you should stop driving
1 of the 5 codes this can cause indicate a fault where continuing to drive risks damage or is unsafe. Which one you have matters more than the cause does — read the code's own page before deciding.
Codes this can cause (5)
Codes where this is a likely explanation first, rather than merely a possible one.
- P07E4 Unable to Engage Park Likely for this code Stop driving Critical
- P271A Park Pawl Position Sensor A Circuit Low Likely for this code High
- P271B Park Pawl Position Sensor A Circuit High Likely for this code High
- P271C Park Pawl Position Sensor B Circuit Low Likely for this code High
- P271D Park Pawl Position Sensor B Circuit High Likely for this code High
Information, not instruction
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