How to Put Your Jeep JL in Neutral When the Battery is Dead

Dynatrac

Supporting Advertiser
Supporter
We had the unfortunate situation where we managed to drain the battery in our 2018 Jeep Wrangler JL and it was parked in a situation where we needed to put the transmission in Neutral to roll it back far enough to give it a jump start. Just one problem: you can't move the automatic transmission shifter from Park to Neutral if the battery is dead! The Park Interlock is electronic and without battery power, you can't move the shifter out of the Park position. But there's a solution built in from the factory that most people don't know about. A secret panel gives you access to a release tab that puts the transmission in Neutral.
Have you run into funny or frustrating things in the new Jeep JL that you wonder if there is a solution for? Post in the comments. If our resident JL expert, Tony Carvallo, knows of a work around or solution, we'll do a post to help everyone in the Jeep JL community.
 

RMC2

Member
I had seen this in the manual, but only by accident. This is solid, good to know information. And seeing it in a video beats just reading about it.
 

Billc222

New member
Car Wash Problem

Is there a workaround to let the JL roll in neutral with engine off? Car wash will not allow engine to idle during wash if car vacant.

Thank you.
 

jebjkey

New member
Every automatic has a park override/release feature, nothing new here.

If you did not know about park override/release then you would have never looked for how to do it. Before cars stopped using actual keys, automatics and a spot to put the key in to allow you to move the transmission lever out of park when there was no power. With the completely electronic transmissions [no linkage connected to the shift lever] and lack of an actual key now-a-days, there is a park release feature somewhere in every automatic vehicle.
 

JTCO

Meme King
Every automatic has a park override/release feature, nothing new here.

If you did not know about park override/release then you would have never looked for how to do it. Before cars stopped using actual keys, automatics and a spot to put the key in to allow you to move the transmission lever out of park when there was no power. With the completely electronic transmissions [no linkage connected to the shift lever] and lack of an actual key now-a-days, there is a park release feature somewhere in every automatic vehicle.

Ummm, I'm pretty confident that Dynatrac knew that. They were just nice enough to put this video together and share it with other JL owners who weren't aware. Not everybody is an expert such as yourself.
 

wayoflife

Administrator
Staff member
Every automatic has a park override/release feature, nothing new here.

If you did not know about park override/release then you would have never looked for how to do it. Before cars stopped using actual keys, automatics and a spot to put the key in to allow you to move the transmission lever out of park when there was no power. With the completely electronic transmissions [no linkage connected to the shift lever] and lack of an actual key now-a-days, there is a park release feature somewhere in every automatic vehicle.

Ummm, cool dude. :rolleyes2:
 

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