I was driving today and stopped at a red light. When green I stepped on the gas and did not move, looked at dash lights and all looked well. Then I noticed the transmission was in park. I put it in D and as soon as I gassed it the trans went back to park and again no error lights. So I turned off the vehicle, back on and all was well. First time I have had this issue. Anyone else see this issue?

 

First I ever heard of it going into park on its own. If you turn the car off while in drive, it will automatically go into Park, but I never heard of it going into park by itself.

 

This sounds like a safety thing. Perhaps the engine was still at a high rpm when you attempted to put it in drive. The engine / transmission controller may have thwarted your action to prevent a sudden jolt to the drivetrain.

 

No, I was already driving around town for awhile fine until I ran in to the problem I described. Normal driving, nothing weird.

 

wearing the seatbelt?

 

Opened the driver's door to spit out some tobacco juice?

When it comes to electronic gremlins, nothing really surprises me with this car. When in doubt, reboot.

<ctrl> <alt> <del>

 

Chalk it up to a transmission controlled by electronics. Hopefully it was a one time glitch. I was driving on the parkway and suddenly my entire gauge cluster went blank. It hasn't happened since, and it was only for a brief moment ... this was over 6mos ago. *shrug*

 

Strange and dangerous behavior. To be Captain Obvious, report this and take it to the dealer. You’ll probably get a “unable to replicate problem” response, but at least it’ll be on record.

If I had to guess the cause... well it could be so many things, but I think @Wander might be on to something with a bad door sensor.

 

Haha, probably just a one off. I love the car and am getting ready to get a 2021 once released. Hopefully lots of hidden fixes like a faster processor in the Infotainment system as I think that's the root of the problems with that one.

 

wishful thinking on new processor.

it's most likely coding, ie; errors in the code.
to give an idea on why I dont think it needs a more powerful chip; NASA repurposed a sony playstation (the original playstation) chip for it's Orion Space craft. it's flying towards pluto

 

I can't say I miss the days when I had no money, but I'm nostalgic for the days when I could push my car and get it moving fast enough to hop in, pop the clutch and get it started (because I couldn't afford a new battery).

Raise your hand if you remember having to always park facing downhill.

It's MacGyver-like solutions like that, that new cars take away from us. If the car doesn't work, you're pretty much fucked. Have you seen the all-glass cockpit in the new Space-X command module? If they had that on Apollo 13, those three guys would be somewhere out beyond the Ort cloud by now.

 

my 2006 TL does have three pedals!
I've only found myself having to park downhill, when my starter went out. was very lucky that the place of business where i parked was on an incline.

 

I had exactly the same thought about the SpaceX module....
And yes, I have pushed more than one car to get it going! Those were the "good old days" !!

 

Thankfully, the car I had to push-start was small. In fact, I think I had my wife push!

 

Please report it to the NHTSA.
https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/VehicleComplaint/

 

Sometimes I have to push start my wife!
​​​​​​​
OH....maybe I shouldn't have said that?

 

Careful. She might hook you up to the jumper cables. ​​​​​​​

 

Sounds like one of the doors wasn't closed all the way. If a door isn't completed latched, as soon as input from the brake pedal switch is gone, a signal is sent to the TCU to engage park.

 

How would turning the car off and turning it back on fix that?

 

Good question, maybe not then but this is how it behaves. Good luck, I wouldn't worry about it too much unless it happens again. Definitely not something I've seen before.

 

Read my original post. Sometimes I wonder if people actually read the original post or if they just respond to other answers that may or may not be stupid.

 

I did ✌️

 

Then why did you say it was a opened door and/or one of the latch sensors? More plausible would be a software/electronics glitch which are the root of almost all the problems in the RDX. Wait until you run in to the safety feature delays when the processor is overloaded.

 

This is starting to get entertaining, but it's true that opening the driver's door and letting off the brake will cause the car to shift into Park. ( Hence my smart a$$ comment ). And it's a real PITA if you're trying to back a small trailer.

As for the site of the intermittent failure, ( with N=1 at present ), I imagine it could be anywhere from the door sensors to the TCU to some random glitch in a system bus or other connected system. "Fault tolerant" isn't a phrase that springs to mind when I think of this car's electronics.

FWIW during a recent long-distance move my wife drove my RDX while I drove her MDX with a 6x12 U-Haul trailer for the stuff we didn't want the movers to move, or they wouldn't move. As we were making our way through a huge mess near Marion Iowa, where they lost all power in a derecho weather event in mid-August, I got a panicked phone call from my wife saying that the car was stuck in first gear and wouldn't shift. I calmly explained that she had probably engaged manual shift mode with the paddles, and she should push the D/S button to get out of it, but it didn't work. So she finally pulled onto the shoulder and power cycled the car. That worked. N=1

 

I also lost all power in a rain storm. Passing semis when it happened. And I know about the door safety feature. Issues attributed to system glitch that are random in one sense but not so as other owners experienced the same issues. No one will be able to repeat those events on demand. I’m glad but not happy that you experienced same, cheers