Car starts but will not move

Three checks that narrow it down for free

Whether the engine revs freely or bogs down is the most valuable thing you can tell us. Revving freely means nothing is connected. Bogging down means everything is connected and something is stuck.

Start with the cheap possibilities

It is worth being unfashionable about this: a fair share of cars that will not move have something simple wrong, and running through those first has saved people a great deal of money.

Check the parking brake is fully released, including the electronic ones, which occasionally fail to release on one side and hold the car firmly enough to feel like a transmission fault. If yours has a switch rather than a lever, cycle it a few times.

Check the shift indicator agrees with the lever. If the dash still shows Park while the lever is in Drive, the cable or linkage between them has stretched or come loose. The transmission is in Park because nothing told it otherwise. This is a common fault on higher-mileage cars and it is inexpensive to fix.

Look for a shift interlock problem too. If the car will not come out of Park at all, the culprit is usually the brake light switch, which the car uses to confirm your foot is on the brake before releasing the shifter. A failed switch means the interlock never releases, and it often shows up alongside brake lights that do not work.

Finally, if the car has been parked for weeks, particularly outdoors through winter, the brake pads can rust to the discs hard enough to hold it. That version usually breaks free with a firm attempt and a loud crack, and is worth checking before assuming the worst.

The engine revs but nothing happens

If the engine climbs freely in rpm while the car sits still, power is not reaching the wheels. On an automatic, the most common causes in order are low transmission fluid, a failed torque converter, a broken shift linkage, or internal transmission failure.

Low fluid is worth checking first because it is the cheapest and it is genuinely common. An automatic transmission uses hydraulic pressure to engage its clutches, and below a certain level there is not enough pressure to hold them. Cars with a dipstick for the transmission can be checked in a few minutes, warm and running, in Park on level ground. Many newer cars have sealed transmissions with no dipstick at all, which is a job for underneath the car.

Fluid that is dark brown or black and smells burnt is telling you something separate from its level. That is heat damage, and it usually means clutch material has been circulating in it.

Broken linkage produces the same symptom with a completely different cost. If the lever moves with no resistance at all, or the dash indicator does not follow the lever, the connection between the two has failed and the transmission never left Park or Neutral. Nothing inside is wrong.

On a manual car, a clutch that has worn out entirely does exactly this: the engine revs, the car does not move, and the pedal often feels different from how it used to.

The engine bogs down when you select a gear

This is the more hopeful version, and people rarely realise it. If the engine dips, labours or stalls when you shift into Drive, the transmission is engaging correctly. Drive is being delivered. Something else is stopping the car.

A seized brake caliper is the usual answer. Calipers stick, particularly the slide pins on cars that see winter salt, and a fully seized one can clamp a disc hard enough to hold the car against the engine. The car often pulls hard to one side just before it happens, and the wheel in question gets very hot and smells scorched.

A collapsed brake hose does the same thing by a different route. The inner lining fails and acts as a one-way valve, letting pressure in when you brake and not letting it out afterward, so the brake stays applied. From the driver's seat this is indistinguishable from a seized caliper.

A stuck parking brake cable, corroded into its sheath, holds the rear wheels the same way. Common on cars that spend winters outside and are used mostly in the city.

All three are ordinary repairs, and all three are considerably cheaper than the transmission everyone fears. Which is exactly why the order of investigation matters.

Moves in Reverse but not Drive

This specific pattern deserves its own paragraph because it comes up often and it is one of the few symptoms that genuinely does point inside the transmission.

An automatic uses different clutch packs and bands for forward gears than it does for reverse. When forward gears fail and reverse still works, the components that reverse relies on are intact and the forward ones are not. That is an internal fault, and no amount of fluid changes will reverse wear that has already happened.

Occasionally a very low fluid level produces the same effect, because reverse can require less pressure to engage than a forward gear on some designs. So it is still worth checking the level before drawing conclusions. But if the fluid is at the correct level and reverse works while Drive does nothing, the honest answer is that the transmission needs opening up.

We will tell you that plainly rather than selling a fluid service and hoping. A transmission rebuild is a specialist job and not a driveway one, and knowing where you stand for the price of a diagnosis is better than paying twice to find out.

Front-wheel drive and the broken axle

If the car moved briefly, made a bang or a loud clunk, and then stopped moving while the engine still ran, a CV axle has probably snapped. On a front-wheel drive car the axles carry all the power to the wheels, and a broken one disconnects that side completely.

The warning sign usually arrives months earlier: a rhythmic clicking on tight turns, most obvious in a parking lot, caused by a worn outer joint. That clicking is a torn CV boot that let the grease out and the dirt in. Caught at the clicking stage it is a straightforward axle replacement. Left alone, the joint eventually comes apart.

The other version is a boot that has been torn for a long time on a car that has otherwise been fine. It is worth looking at both front wheels for a black greasy spray pattern around the inside of the wheel arch, because that is what a split boot throws.

A broken axle is a repairable fault and a reasonable one to fix at the car. It is not, however, something to drive on, because a partly detached axle can do further damage on its way out.

How we work through it, and what it costs

We come to the car, because a car that does not move is not going to a shop under its own power and a tow is money spent before anybody has looked at it.

The order is deliberate: the free checks first, then fluid level and condition, then the shift linkage and the interlock circuit, then a scan for stored transmission codes, which on modern cars often name the failed solenoid or circuit directly. Brakes get checked for drag by hand, and the axles get inspected for boot damage and play.

Diagnosis starts at $95 and most are done within the hour. You get the finding in writing with a price for the repair, so a linkage or a caliper gets fixed on the spot where practical.

Where the answer is an internal transmission fault, we say so and we do not start work we cannot finish properly at the roadside. Knowing that early, with a written finding you can take to a transmission shop, is worth considerably more than a hopeful fluid change.

We cover Flushing and the rest of Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island and Long Island. Tell us whether the engine revs freely or bogs down when you select Drive, and whether Reverse works, and we will arrive knowing roughly where to start.

Common questions