Ok, thanks to all who tried to help. I'll let everyone know what the problem was once they get it figured out.

 

I guess I'm not saying this the way I intend to.
Don't have her try to start the car. Have her try the things I suggested to get the car back into park - without turning the key to the "start" position.
Have her turn the key to the "on" position and have her try to shift it back into Park with the e-brake off and her foot on the brake.
If that doesn't work, leave the key in the "on" position and have someone rock the car with her foot off of the brake and the e-brake off and see if it will shift back into park when the tension is off of the drive gears.
Also, make sure she has any "shifter buttons" pressed on the stick when trying to move it (some vehicles have a "button" on the shift handle that has to be depressed/squeezed to get the stick to engage the gear).

 

That's because it's stuck in gear. It needs to be relieved of the pressure on the gears to get it out of gear, past neutral and reverse and back into park. The indicator is correct.
My guess is the car was still moving when it was turned off in gear.
The next step I'd take is to jack the front end up - get the drive wheels completely off of the ground - and try the shifter (with the foot brake on) again.

 

If none of those suggestions work try:

1. Bang the back of the key with a rubber mallet......to shake the key pins inside.

2. Spray into the key with a lubricant with something like WD-40 (even though it is not my favorite lubricant).

 

Again, thanks to everyone for their assistance in this matter.

Bootcamp, there's no button on the Avenger shifter. And she was fully stopped when she turned the key off, which we did in the other 08 SE Avenger without a problem. It looks like they may be moving from the buttons on the shifter these days because they have other lockouts now. Just like the Mustang doesn't have a button to take the key out for the stick shift anymore. What were/are those buttons for anyway? Only the stick shifts, as far as I know, had those, but I never knew why. Push the button, take the key out. As for the gear thing and pusing it, it would roll when it was in neutral, even though the dash indicated it was in drive, and when it was put on the flat bed there was no issue with the wheels not moving. It was getting in gears and moving fine, neutral and reverse, it just wouldn't go into the autstick and park position.

Unfortunatley, I wasn't able to get up to my wife before they towed the car so everything still had power to it while it sits there. The run down protection won't save the car, I believe, since the car belives that it's in the drive gear and running. Guess no one really wanted to hassle with the battery in the wheel well. I still think that's just the greatest design in the world. Another one of those who cares if something comes up designs, it's just more convenient for the designers. Anyway, off my soap box. Come Monday, if not sooner, that battery will be dead.

Reading the manual, once I was able to get it when my wife got home, it seems like there are two things that happens here. If the transmission is stuck in park, there is a switch under the cup holder, or button, that can be depressed to release the tranmission, with the key in the ignition of course, so that it can be moved, towed, if needed. This has to do with the brake/transaxle interlock system and it requires power from the battery to operate. Good thing they have that switch there.

This problem, the one that my wife is having, seems to be a little different, obviously, which is also mentioned in the manual. This has to do with the automatic transaxle ignition interlock system. This is what it states in the manual: "This system prevents the key from being removed unless the shift lever is in park," which obviously we aren't able to put it in park and I'm sure everyone has heard of this system. Continuing on, "It also prevents shifting out of parks unless the key is in the on position and the brake pedal is applied. Note: If a malfunction occurs, the system will trap the key in the ignition cylinder to warn you that this safety feature is inoperable. The engine can be started" just not in my wife's case, "and stopped, but the key cannot be removed until you obtain service."

No serious, I have to leave the key in the ignition until it gets fixed?! Well let me make sure that I tell all the thiefs and cops that I know that please don't break in my car, or give me a ticket for the key in the cylinder, which they do around here, because it's broke and you can't take it anywhere. It looks like the reverse may be true in some cases above as you can start and stop the car, but you can't get the key out. Well that's even more helpful. When they are stealing the car, at least they can't get the key out. At least when it's stripped, the key will still be in the cylinder. What idiot engineer thought that this was a good idea?

You know with all the technology, it's kind of funny that this is the best that chrysler can come up with. Forget the codes that use to come up, at least in the Ram, now they lock things out so you can't use it until you get service. I can see that if it's an emergency situation that could cause serious injury if it's not fixed, but I have a feeling that this doesn't have anything to do with that, but we'll find out for sure.

 

I had a rediculous problem with my intrepid that ended with it having to go to the dealership. It came with an alarm system (which caused more problems than just this). Anyway, while trying to install a new radio the battery somehow died and it was reading as being disconnected. This caused the alarm system to go into some mode which prohibited the car from being started. It had to go to the dealership where they hooked up a computer and had to enter some codes to reset it. I later realized that I had to disconnect the battery to install the radio, but I was informed that even if I had done this the alarm system would have gone into that mode. Meaning that if I had bestbuy do the installation my car would have ended up stuck in their garage. Genius.

 

It really is genius is you think about it ever since they put the computer's in the cars. They just engineered way to make it work even better. See, they do things like this then you are stuck with only one choice. You have to take it to the dealer for certain problems. Well, if they do it just right, they can make it where more and more problems that come up and need certain equipment that only the dealer has, obviously the more often you have to return it. It's good business for the dealers and it forces you to come back. It's a sneaky monopoly, though very very small, thing going on right now that if it gets to out of control I'm sure the government will eventually step in, but right now it's not even showing up on the radar.

I'm sure a lot of the older people on here, heck even people just in their 30s, will agree with me that it was great to go outside and work on your car. I remember rebuilding my carburetor back in the day, now you have to hook up a computer just to see where the throttle body is, obviously exaggerating, but not far off.

 

Axel, sorry dude. Government's already involved and on their side (auto repair industry) part of the whole ODBII federal regulation. In NJ, you can pass emissions (probe in the tail pipe a la Cartman) but if you have a CEL you have to go get it serviced, took me a year of trying to get the damned thing fixed.

Yeah, don't look to the government for help, they're already owned by the special interest groups.

 

That's kind of the odd thing about that, the fact that they are on their side, but at the same time they are doing things to hurt them by these tough restrictions for mpg. Like a give and take type of thing.

Well, things just went down hill. It seems that they think it's a roll pin that could have broke or something happened when they were building it and they built it wrong. They won't know until they get into it more which could take two or three days. In the mean time, we are stuck on our own to get a rental car. Nice of them to offer to get us one considering this car only has just over 300 miles on it. Kind of upsets me.

Update: After complaining to Chrysler, they tried to say that we should have been offered a service contract. Well yeah, but 380 miles, so not just over like I first thought, and three weeks, we shouldn't have to have a service contract. They turned around and agreed and are now paying for the rental car. Chrysler/Jeep was happy to hear that so that they didn't have to fly through the job, and possibly mess more things up I'm sure, and have more time to check things out.

 

"Update: After complaining to Chrysler, they tried to say that we should have been offered a service contract. Well yeah, but 380 miles, so not just over like I first thought, and three weeks, we shouldn't have to have a service contract. They turned around and agreed and are now paying for the rental car. Chrysler/Jeep was happy to hear that so that they didn't have to fly through the job, and possibly mess more things up I'm sure, and have more time to check things out."



Not offering a rental car under the circumstances was pure bologna. Even they knew it was the right thing to do, but unfortunately, if you don't complain it won't happen. Always remember "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". If you complain, and do it reasonably, you normally win when the right thing to do is obvious.