Shift Interlock Solenoid

What's history of the shifter in terms of how the car has been cared for? I know people who never clean up a messy car can do all kinds of stupid damage they're oblivious to. One time during Covid we spent days helping someone with a standard Prius shifter malfunction that's much different from Prius C and out of nowhere they admitted they've been hanging all their masks from the shifter to such an extreme amount that it was the source of the failure.

 

Your AI didn't work 'because of lack of more specific terms and word 'solenoid'

Run it again with these keywords: parking lock actuator pawl

 

But more to the point first step in stuff like this is taking apart and cleaning and inspecting as much as possible.

 

Because this is a thread about a Prius c, I would not be at all surprised if the OP really does mean the shift interlock solenoid, and not the parking lock actuator pawl.

 

Can you explain? Are you saying Prius C has a different Park system than regular Prius?

 

The c has an old-school shift lever that goes kerchunk between the different shift positions.

It seems most similar to the gen 1 in that way. Gen 1 moved the transmission parking pawl with a Bowden cable from the mechanical lever. The mechanical lever was prevented from moving out of P by a solenoid, unless your foot was on the brake. In dire straits, if the interlock circuit or solenoid wasn't working, you could poke through a hole at a mechanical lock release so you could shift out of P.

I don't know for sure if the c is like the gen 1 in all those details, but the OP mentioned several of them, so it sounds pretty similar.

 

Prius C are strange... Ones I worked on felt like they used way less parts and way less space, yet it still drives like a Prius.