Car won’t start in park, but will in neutral

[Patrick]

I have a 99 Chrysler LHS with the 3.5L engine that has about 180k miles on it. The problem I’m running into at the moment is that when the transmission is in park and you turn the key on, the dashboard lights illuminate and it sounds like a relay click (no crank, no start). If you turn it on then off a couple times it usually starts up and runs normal. If I put the transmission in neutral it starts up and runs as it should. Would this be the neutral safety switch/ range sensor?

Topic

[college man]

If the car does not crank then I would look at the neutral
safety switch.

[Patrick]

Would you happen to know if that is on the side of the transmission or inside? And, how would I test it when I find it?

[Giraldy]

ThEsE are always mounted some where in the transmission assembly. Check this link from ebay it has a little picture I hope it helps. Also sometimes what I do and most of the time it works it just take out the the neutral switch assembly and just put a little of grease around just a little bit and work like a charm. [ebay]130833194704[/ebay]

[Patrick]

Thank you for your help, but that diagram doesn’t really seem clear to me. I guess I’ll have to get under there and see first hand if I’ve got something that’s going to be a pain to fix or something simple.

[EricTheCarGuy]

The sensor should be externally mounted, near the pan I would suspect. That said, sometimes they incorporate the switch into the PRNDL switch for the selector lever. If you can’t find the switch on the outside of the transmission this may be the case. To be honest I think this might be the case as it doesn’t seem like it would start when in neutral if it was a separate neutral safety switch. I would think if the switch was bad it would not start at all. Keep us posted.

[Author]

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