P-Lock Malfunction

Hi all,

So, I had an occurrence this week related to the parking motor in my 2014 V 2. I went to work, and parked inside my parking garage and all was well, the car is in a flat, level parking space. When I got back to it after work that afternoon, I got the dreaded P-Lock malfunction soliloquy on the dash. I've had this happen before, but start-cycling it and rocking the car seemed to get it to go away. This time, not so much.

I had a colleague come in and provide a jump start (I was backed into the spot, so had to use the under-hood jump provisions), no help. I tried again using my second vehicle another evening this week, still nothing. Finally had a mobile-ish mechanic come out and diagnose it, and he pulled a few codes, but didn't spout off anything that was related to the issue I was having, but I'm sure he found something. After tinkering with it for nearly 45 minutes, he brought a little lithium battery from an RC car, with 14.8VDC in it, and jumped the battery directly using this little pack. I was then able to bring the car to Ready and a subsequent shift alleviated the message in the gauge cluster. I drove it home thereafter.

Over this weekend, I have deliberately tried draining the 12V battery gradually to try to reproduce a known issue as these parking actuators are notoriously sensitive to available voltage/current. I couldn't reproduce it even after bringing the voltage down even lower than it was when I had the problem initially.

Today, I removed the under-cover and unplugged the wiring harness from the shift actuator to inspect the connectors. Couldn't inspect the ones on the motor as they were pointed up and away from me, and I don't have a mirror. But, the plug looked fine, nice shiny connections inside, and the little wiring that was exposed didn't seem to be damaged in any way. I put in a modest amount of dielectric grease and plugged it back in.

MY QUESTION: If it comes time to replace this thing, I cannot access the mounting bolts. The Weber Auto channel's deep dive into this transaxle suggests that the manufacturer provided shielded bolts that get plugged after installation, and that later models of their hybrid transaxle have bolts that are one-way except when using a special procedure. Is there a preferred method for removing these plugs? I did try prying at them with a hook pick but didn't have much luck. I was trying not to puncture any cooling lines in the area. Is a drill the right answer here/

Thanks, and have a great day!