Gear Selection Malfunction

This is unfortunately a tale of self-caused problems with my G2 '04 Prius

My gear selector was making an annoying noise when the knob was moved so I disassembled the gear selector from the car, and then took the gear selector box partially apart. Now with it back in the car I am stuck in 'B' gear.

The car seems to boot up correctly into 'Park' and the display shows 'Ready' and no alarms
If I try to choose another gear I see the display highlight 'D' but when I release the gear knob 'B' is highlited. Forward motion is enabled. At this point the 'Park' button does not work but I am able to power the car down as usual.

I have tried:

• Turning the car on and off
• Pressing the brake a couple of times, and pressing all the way to the floor while trying to pick a gear.
• Disconnecting the 12V for 10-15 minutes
• Connecting a ScanGauge. No codes are found
• I thought I may have put the gear selector together wrong. There is an 'axle' that runs through the box. I flipped it's orientation (only two ways are possible) but no change in car behavior noted.

I have actually seen this behavior before, a couple of years ago. Then I had not messed around with the car, and the aberrant behavior self-corrected. So *perhaps* this is coincidence and I just should replace the part, but I don't accept coincidence until I check with you all.

Thanks!

 

Update: Prius back to running !

It took a week for the part to arrive from autobeyours.com, but installation was trivial. The first time I started the car with the new (used) part I could not select 'D', but I cycled the car on/off and that fixed whatever electronic gremlin was in the system. Perhaps unrelated to the failure mode, this episode has taught me to not be lazy and always disconnect the 12V prior to fiddling with any of the car electronics. It is certainly safer, and the gang of ECUs are less likely to get confused.

Summary: first repair out of my pocket for the Prius now in it's 10th year of operation. Total cost $68. Amazing.