P288B: Park Lock/Pawl Actuator Circuit Performance
What to do
Always apply the parking brake when you park — do not rely on P. With the park actuator faulty, the car may not fully engage or verify its pawl, and a car held only by a pawl it cannot confirm is a car that can roll. If it refuses to come out of park, check it is not loaded against a slope — rock it gently against the parking brake — and have the circuit repaired promptly rather than working around it.
What this code means
The park lock actuator is not performing as commanded.
Performance means the pawl moves, but late, short or with too much effort — the mechanism stiffening, or a pawl being asked to release under the car's weight. The mechanical check comes before the electrical one here.
Park is a mechanical latch, and this actuator is what drives it. The park pawl drops into a toothed wheel on the output and physically stops the car rolling; on shift-by-wire transmissions an actuator moves it, commanded by the module. This circuit family is that actuator's wiring and behaviour.
When actuation fails, the concern is not the gear you are in but the one you cannot reach — or cannot leave. A car that cannot engage park has nothing holding it but the parking brake; one that cannot release park is going nowhere. The module treats both seriously, and many designs engage park automatically at shutdown — an actuator fault can therefore surface as a car that refuses to switch off cleanly, or parks itself and will not be argued out of it.
Check the mechanism before the motor. A pawl loaded by the car's whole weight — parked on a slope with no parking brake — resists release with more force than the actuator has, and the strain reads electrically as an overworked circuit. The habit that prevents it is the same one that protects you now: the parking brake, applied first, every time.
Likely causes
Start here
- Corroded or loose connector · specialist
- Faulty transmission range selector motor · specialist
- Damaged wiring harness · specialist
Less common
- Seized or obstructed park mechanism · specialist
- Faulty transmission control module · specialist
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
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