As per the title really,

The problem is that twice now since I got the car nearly 3 weeks ago, I have got in the car and tried to start it and was rewarded with silence. The starter motor does not turn at all, the dials sweep round and everything else works, just cannot start the car. To get the car to start, I have to put my foot on the brake and then move the gear selector to 'N' from 'P' and back to 'P' again, then the car will start. Its almost as if the car is not detecting the car is in P. The maxidot says the car is in P, and the green symbol on the instruments is lit indicating I need to use the footbrake to select a gear.

I am going to monitor the situation for a bit, because I know I can get around the problem at the moment.

Manual states:

Starting-off and Driving

– Depress the brake pedal and hold it depressed.

– Press the Shiftlock button (button in handle of the selector lever),

move the selector lever into the desired position, e.g. D ⇒ page 132,

and then release the Shiftlock button.

– Release the brake pedal and depress the accelerator ⇒

Are you pressing the brake pedal when turning the key - my BMW wont start without the brake pedal being depressed....?

Normally just get in, turn key and it starts. These two times, it has not and needed me to move the selector between lever out of P and back again. To do this I need to press the brake pedal otherwise I cannot get out of P, it will then start as normal without me having the foot on the brake.

There's going to be a fault logged with behaviour like this. Vcds scan

Odd that Maxidot indicates P and will not start.....

I'd have said it was an inhibitor not thinking the box was in P, but if Maxidot says P....

I'd get VCDS on it and log the selector positions as you move it.

it did the same thing last night, but this time I tried something different. On this occasion I pressed the button on the side of the selector a couple of times and the car started fine without me moving the selector at all.

Did you get this problem fixed? I have similar on Octavia, Garage cannot find any fault.

Not really, it fixed itself. Not had the problem for the best part of 6 months, so I dont really know whats caused it.

It definitely sounds like the inhibitor switch. Surely this is different to the sensor that detects the gear position as that needs to know where the gear lever is and reports that to the maxidot and also is used inconjunction with the brake light switch to make the green light on the dashboard light up. The inhibitor will be a simple in/out switch which is activated by the gear lever put in park. They have these on tractors and I have known them to fail to give the symptoms described, also a loose wire on the starter will give similar problems.

Ian