Unlocking steering and trans?

just carry a jump pack

 

Towing companies can tow cars with two wheels locked.......except in very unusual circumstances.
And despite the warnings in the manual, the 12 V battery can be jumped unless there has been a very unusual failure.

 

The theft-deterrent box is checked by the transmission park actuator. You'll notice it's located (for Gen 2) on a side of the transmission that is devilish difficult to even reach with the transmission in the car, and it is a type of electric motor called "switched reluctance" that you wouldn't even be able to make spin by cutting the wires and jumping to a battery. You need a circuit to pulse current in rapid succession on the right sequence of windings.

For Gen 3 the actuator moved to a more accessible spot on the transmission, but is attached there with tamper-resisting screws and collars.

 

If you ever run into the situation where the 12v battery is drained, all you need to do is connect a jump(pack or spare battery or other car battery) to the underhood jump point inside the fusebox located on the upper driverside corner. That will allow all the electronics to be powered up using the power button on the dash. After any complete loss/restoration of 12v power, the power button will need to be pressed 2x to clear all the alarms that will be displayed. Then just use the shifter to put the transaxle in neutral. I'm pretty sure it will stay in neutral if you then disconnect the jump. That's assuming you don't want to just make it go into ready condition while you have the jump connected.

 

@Sam Spade 2’s reponse does an end-run around all the concerns: towing is invariably done with the front wheels off the ground.

 

One more important note:
You should be worrying more about losing BOTH keys than about towing.
There should be TWO keys for the vehicle and the "manual" key should work to unlock the door(s).

That should give you access to the inside of the car and the battery under the back seat or jump points under the hood.
Seems like I remember that there is a "slot" near the shifter to disable the parking function too.

 

That’s a Honda thing; maybe that’s what you’re thinking of?

 

No, haven't owned a Honda for 30 years or more.
Maybe it's my Ford.
Or maybe the C has it and others don't.

 

The parking pawl motor is also known as a brushless dc motor- similar to MG1 and MG2.

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The shift interlock bypass is somewhat common for asian makes (esp Hondas) , but not so much for US or euro cars. The Gen2 electronic shifter has no bypass.

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MG1 and MG2 are three-phase synchronous AC motors.

If you draw a box around each one and make the box big enough to include the inverter section that drives it, you could sort of call that whole box a brushless DC motor, if you wanted to. The resolver (built into the transmission) and the switching circuitry in the inverter play the role of the electronic commutation circuitry that a BLDC motor would include.

The parking pawl motor is a switched reluctance motor. Here again, you can build a BLDC motor out of a switched-reluctance motor and the right kind of commutating circuit; if you draw a box around the parking pawl motor and make the box big enough to include the Transmission Control ECU, then bingo, you can call that entire box a BLDC motor. It's a rather finicky BLDC motor, though, that doesn't agree you deserve to spin anything unless your transmitted key fob code is right.

 

You are correct in your descriptions, I was just going on the (very) basic principles of pulsed DC coils (ok- synthesized AC) driving a permanent magnet rotor.

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In some other car that used a steering lock instead of the park lock to satisfy the theft-prevention requirement, you could still face the same inconvenience (especially if the car was parked with the wheels turned).

Tow drivers have ways of dealing with those kinds of inconveniences.

 

I’d think they commonly tow with front wheels off the ground, but wonder how they deal with an unattended car with a set parking brake. The more unscrupulous ones maybe just ignore it and tow, with the brake set. Or they break in and release parking brake. Or put the rear on a dolly.