So this afternoon I find myself stranded at McDonalds.
Here is my accounting of what happened.
I pull into a parking spot and and take my seatbelt off and I find myself not lined up in the spot. So I go to reverse the car I see the auto parking brake has been applied and since I have auto brake hold on and I don’t have my seatbelt on I need to release the parking brake.
No big deal this happened before I release the parking brake and line the car up in the spot. I go into the McDonald’s for a drink and I’m back out within five minutes.
I hop back into the car put my seatbelt on and try to start the car and I find the car won’t start! I find a message on dashboard parking brake service required and the red park light is flashing. I attempt to release the parking brake by pressing the brake pedal and by pressing the parking brake button and parking brake will not release.
I try to hold the engine start knob and again the vehicle will still not start and so I press the center button on the steering wheel to try to clear the parking brake error and find the are several other errors behind the parking brake error. The other errors were SRS airbag service urgent drive to the workshop, Engine oil level monitoring malfunction service required, auto hold service required and I also notice the speedometer has dashes for where MPH should be listed.
I was able to get the car into neutral by holding down the gear selector button however the gear indicator on the gauge cluster was not moving as I shift into different gears and I try to release the parking brake there and still no luck.
So after 15 minutes of trying different combinations of button pressing, turning the start stop knob and of course looking in the owners manual which says in the event of a parking brake malfunction to call the workshop I have no recourse but press the On Call button.
I speak to the on-call representative and she arranges a tow.
So the tow truck shows up the driver attempts to release my parking brake and shift my car to neutral and he is finding it as difficult as I was and now we are unable to shift the car into neutral. He becomes very perplexed and even starts honking my horn for some reason…
Anyway he did not want drag my car out of the spot since he was unable to fit his flat bed behind my car and the parking brake wouldn’t release and we could not get the car into neutral at the time.
The tow truck driver called his boss and was arguing on the phone with him about dragging the car in the meantime it gave me some more time with the car. Since I can no longer get the car into neutral by holding down the gearshift button, I pull the rubber mat in front of the shifter and push the manual release button.
I got the car in to neutral and see the N is now showing the gear change on the gauge cluster and I was able to reset the parking brake (no more flashing park light) and start the car! So I got the car running and drove the car to the dealer. The only issue was the car did not know it was running so no MPH or RPM was displayed.
Of course once I restart the car at the dealer everything is normal again.
The XC90 will be admitted for observation for the evening. I’ll see what the dealer has to say in the morning.
Sorry for the long post just want to share my story just in case it happens to one of you.
In closing I think the issue with the car not starting after a parking brake fault is that the gear selector was not reporting the gear change which was preventing the vehicle from starting.