Mitsubishi Outlander Stuck in Park & Won’t Move? Here’s the Mechanic’s Fix

I had a good friend call me last week, saying she was detailing the inside of her vehicle. When she was done, she tried to move it, and the service parking brake light began flashing. The engine did start, and the transmission would engage, but her car would not move! She thought that since the car wouldn’t move and the transmission would not shift, she had a transmission problem. So I decided to drive over to her house to take a look at the vehicle, which is a 2018 Mitsubishi Outlander.

I first plugged in my cheap OBD scan tool, which I always keep in my truck, and tried to clear the codes. Nothing changed, and the car was still not movable. In order to properly scan the car, I needed to get it to my repair shop.

To help her save money on a towing service, I needed a way to make the electronic parking brake release. Since the car started and the transmission engaged, it was obvious that the parking brake was stuck engaged and was the reason the car would not move. I went to my truck, grabbed a 12VOLT Milwaukee battery and used the leads off of my multimeter, and unplugged the parking brake plugs behind the rear wheels.

I put power to them, touching the leads to the hot and ground, and you could hear the electronic parking brake releasing.

Now that the car was free, I drove it to my garage with the parking brake light still on. I pulled the rear wheels off and the parking switch out of the center console to check for power and continuity. The rear modules tested well when sending voltage to them; they opened and closed, but when trying at the switch, nothing!

I tore apart the switch to find that it was gummy and smelled burnt. I called the customer and asked her what she had cleaned the center console with, and she said she had used a steam cleaner.

We needed a parking brake button, but no auto parts stores in the area had them or would be able to get one in. I ended up finding a used switch on eBay. When the switch arrived, I installed it into the center console, but the service parking brake continued to flash on the dashboard.

After performing a parking brake reset with my Full System scanner , boom, the parking brakes would engage and disengage using the switch on the center console. I also ended up replacing the rear brake pads, as they were almost worn down to metal-on-metal. Then, I test-drove the vehicle, and everything worked flawlessly as it should.

Bonus Tip

Never clean any electrical components with a steam cleaner. This would have cost her well over 400 dollars if she had to go to the dealer!

Related Symptoms

• Dash warnings
  • “ Service Parking Brake ” flashing
  • EPB/parking brake icon blinking (circle “P”)
  • Sometimes “Auto Hold unavailable” or hill-start assist disabled
• Vehicle…