Can't shift out of "M" mode!

[allenc]

Yesterday, I accidentally pushed the auto button to the "M" position. I tried to push the button back into the economy or sport positions, but the dash reads "M" no matter what. I had to manually shift 1-2-3 on the way home, and as a result can't really travel over 30 or so. I turned off the car to see if it would reset back into "M" but it is still in manual mode. Anyone ever heard of this? THanks
Chris
'89 535ia.

[gale]

Classic symptoms of "The Pepsi Syndrome". Go to Radio Shack or any electrical parts place and get some contact cleaner & slip the spray tube nozzle under the switch & give it a good dose. Then slide the switch back & forth rapidly a few dozen times, should take care of it. For recently spilled soda, sometimes water will work, followed by a good blast of compressed air, did that on my window switches last summer & worked well. WD-40 works well also. Sometimes contact cleaner will leave a white residue on the black plastic but Armorall will take care of it.

[gale]

Forgot to add a link for doing a more thorough job:

http://www.nmia.com/~dgnrg/page_13.htm

[allenc]

The only thing is that when i push the "E" the "M" on the dash blinks, like it is acknowledging that the "E" is being depressed. Do you think this could still be remedied with contact cleaner?

[Qsilver7]

The only thing is that when i push the "E" the "M" on the dash blinks, like it is acknowledging that the "E" is being depressed. Do you think this could still be remedied with contact cleaner?

If you have a sunroof...swap the sunroof switch with the gear select switch and see if it solves the problem. Those 2 switches have the same pin set up...and I'm sure no one has spilt anything on the sunroof switch, right...unless you've been driving in outerspace.

[632 Regal]

Mine does E but not M, same exact feature as yours and the sunroof switch didnt fix it. I was thinking it might be down by the transmission somewhere but all that wiring looks ok, didnt get to the connectors yet.
let me know what fixes it for you!

[allenc]

I happened to have another tranny selector switch in my basement from a '95 5er... I forgot i had it... Anyway, i plugged it in and it immediately went back to "E". The new switch seems to work fine. I took apart and cleaned the old switch and it still didn't work. Luckily i had that other switch, I wasn't looking forward to keeping my speeds to 30 mph! Thanks for all your replies.

[Qsilver7]

I happened to have another tranny selector switch in my basement from a '95 5er... I forgot i had it... Anyway, i plugged it in and it immediately went back to "E". The new switch seems to work fine. I took apart and cleaned the old switch and it still didn't work. Luckily i had that other switch, I wasn't looking forward to keeping my speeds to 30 mph! Thanks for all your replies.

If so...the 95 E34 switch is the A M type...so how do you go into sport mode? The e34s with the A M swith have to pull their gear lever back to 4 or 3 to engage sport mode...whereas e34s with the S E M switch move their switch into S to engage sport mode.

Just curious.

[rockyfeller]

Had the same problem and did the risky job of opening the whole switch. It is unecessarily intricate and complex containing contacts that activate "A" and "M" based on how the switch is slided. I tried for hours to get it working just right in frustration assembling/disassembling. At last I just locked it into Auto position so the switch would be functionless in the process I managed to kill the built in light. A year later I just had to pry it apart again because of my perfectionist/persistant attitude problem and worked on it so much I practically wrecked it. I bought another one from Ebay for $10 and all is well! Finally I can use the car in hyper-drive-like-mad-for-no-reason-mode. But the light on this one is out too.